MINISTRY OF HEALTHCARE

OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN

NJSC «Astana Medical University»

Daulbayeva Zh. I.
Balshikeyev S. B.

LECTURES ON CULTUROLOGY

Тutorial
for bachelor students

Nur-Sultan, 2021

2
UDC 008(075.8)
LBC 71я73
D 25

REVIEWERS:

1. B.E.Columbayev- Professor of the Department of Philosophy and theory

of culture, Academician Y.A. Buketov Karaganda University, Doctor of
Philosophy, Professor.
2. D.R. Zharikova - Head of the Department of Philological Disciplines,
NJSC "MUA", Phd of Pedagogical Sciences, Associate Professor.
3. J. D. Sekbayeva - Senior English lector of Department of philological
disciplines NJSC "Astana Medical Univercity", Senior lecturer.

Authors: Daulbayeva Zhannat Ibragimovna, Balshikeyev Serik

Baltabayevich.
D 25. Lectures on CULTUROLOGY. Tutorial / Zh. I. Daulbayeva, S.B.
Balshikeev; NJSC Astana Medical University. - Nur-Sultan, 2021. - p.

This tutorial is a summary of the key topics of the course in cultural studies
for students of higher education. It was developed in accordance with the State
Compulsory Educational Standards of Republic of Kazakhstan. The tutorial
examines the nature and purpose of culture: basic schools, concepts and trends
in cultural studies, history of world and national culture, the preservation of the
world and national cultural heritage. Each theme is provided with self-control
questions, tests and resources. It is done for students of various specialties
studying cultural studies in English.

UDC 008(075.8)
LBC 71я73

Approved and recommended for publication by the Quality Assurance

Committee of educational programs of NJSC “Astana Medical University” as
additional educational literature.
Protocol number ___from “ ”, 20 y.

@Daulbayeva Zh.I., Balshikeyev S.B. 2021.

 Сontent

Introduction 4
Chapter I. Morphology of culture. 8
1. Morphology of culture. The language of culture. 8
1.1. The historical formation of the concept of culture: the definition of 8
the content
1.2. Functions of culture 11
1.3. History of cultural studies as a scientific discipline 12
2. Morphology of culture 14
2.1. The morphology of culture: the main components of culture 14
2.2. Diachronic and synchronous approaches to culture 15
2.3. Typology of culture: the concept of the type of culture, historical 16
typology of cultures, linear and local approach. Culture as a world of
signs and meanings.
2.4. The concept of the language of culture. The language of culture as 17
a way of being culture
3. Semiotics of culture. Anatomy of culture. 19
3.1. Structuralism, semiotic approaches to cultural research 19
3.2. The uniqueness of the cultural code of the national culture 20
3.3. The concept of a symbol of culture. Symbols and archetypes of 20
culture
3.4. Symbols of religion 21
3.5. Symbols in art 23
3.6. Forms of culture: myth, art, religion, morality, philosophy, law, 25
politics, science, technology
4. Review of theoretical approaches. Basic schools and concepts of 26
cultural studies.
4.1. Evolutionary school of cultural studies 26
4.2. Psychoanalytic (naturalistic school) school 28
4.3. Cultural anthropology school 31
4.4. Socio-historical school of local cultures 32
Chapter II. History of cultures. 35
5. Culture of first civilizations 35
5.1. Culture of Primitive society 35
5.2. The culture of the first ancient Eastern civilizations 36
5.3. Culture of Ancient India and Ancient China 40
5.4. History of ancient Greek culture 47
6. Culture of medieval western Europe and Muslim East. 50
6.1. Culture of medieval western Europe 51
6.2. Artistic styles of medieval Europe 52
6.3. Arab-Muslim culture in medieval history 55

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7. Renaissance culture 57

7.1. The most important principle of the Renaissance 57

7.2. The main stages and genres of literatureArchitecture, sculpture, 59
painting of Renaissance
7.3. Reformation and Protestantism 61
8. European culture in XVII-XIX centuries 63
8.1. XVII-XVIII century European culture 63
8.2. 19th century culture 65
8.3 Modern new directions of culture 68
9. Culture of the XX century. 68
9.1 Modernism, three stages in the development of modernism 68
9.2. Expressionism 69
9.3. Abstract Art. Surrealism 70
Chapter III. Kazakh culture in history 74
10. Culture of nomads of Kazakhstan 74
10.1.Nomadic as a type of culture 74
10.2. Myths and religious beliefs of the Saks, Sarmatians, Scythians. 75
Traditions and customs
10.3. Natural monuments and monuments of material culture of Saks, 79
Massagets, Sarmatians, Huns
11.Cultural heritage of the Ancient Turks 80
11.1. Art of the Huns. Animal style of the Huns. Hunnic heroes 80
11.2. Cosmogony and mythology of the ancient Turks. Cult of 83
Ancestors. Tengrianism
11.3. Cultural heritage of the Turkic peoples inhabiting the territory of 85
Kazakhstan
12. Medieval culture of Central Asia 88
12.1. Silk Road: Kazakhstan as a connecting link between East and 88
West
12.2. Dialogue of Indian and Central Asian cultures. Mutual influence 88
of Indian culture and Turkic civilization
12.3. Türkic culture of the Middle Ages 90
12.4. Al-Farabi's contribution to the formation of medieval culture and 91
science
12.5. Abu Reyhan Biruni as a mathematician and cultural historian 93
12.6. Abu Ali ibn Sina and his "Canon of Medicine" 93
13. Turks cultural heritage. 95
13.1. Features of medieval Turkic culture: Islam and nomadism 95
13.2. Sufi Renaissance. The influence of Sufism on the cultural values 96
and worldview of the Turks.The personality and activity of Ahmed
Yassawi (Yasawi) (1093-1166).
13.4. Culture of the Golden Horde period 98

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13.5. Culture of the Temurid period 100
14.Formation of Kazakh culture 103
14.1.Formation of Kazakh traditional culture. Epic culture of Kazakhs. 103
Myths and legends of the Kazakhs
14.2. Traditions, rituals, customs of the Kazakh people 106
14.3.National, publik holidays, festival days of Kazakhstan 109
14.4. National Museum-Reserve Project. 111
15. Kazakh culture at the turn of the 18th - late 19th centuries 115
Kazakh culture of the twentieth century.
15.1.Kazakh culture at the turn of the 18th - late 19th centuries 115
15.2. The phenomenon of the Kazakh Enlightenment 115
15.3. Musical creativity of Kurmangazy, Tattimbet, Zhayau Mussa 119
15.4. The "ZarZaman" phenomenon in Kazakh culture 122
15.5. Kazakh social thought and main directions in Kazakh literature at 123
the turn of the XIX-XX centuries
16. Kazakh culture of the twentieth century. 126
16.1. Kazakh culture during the Soviet period 126
16.2. Monuments of sacred culture on the territory of Kazakhstan. 128
State Program "Cultural Heritage"
16.3. Globalization and the problem of self-identification of ethno- 130
regional cultures
16.4. The main genres of contemporary Kazakh art: literature, 131
painting, theater, architecture, music, cinema, television
Conclusion 138
Questions 139
Tests 143
Answers 152
References 153

3
 Introduction

Since independence there have heen great changes in the various spheres of
economy, politics, as well as in the field of education. Many Universities have
special experimental groups of students, where the education is given through
the English medium. Moreover, there is an opportunity for foreign students to
receive education in Kazakhstan. Several years ago, Astana Medical University
provided foreign students with the opportunity to receive medical education in
English. The number of students taught in English is increasing significantly
every year.
One of the compulsory general education subjects among the humanities is
the “Culturology” discipline. According to the new Discipline Curriculum, a lot
of new topics have been introduced into this course, mostly related to the
History of Culture of Kazakhstan. As a result, foreign students cannot find
sources on these topics in English. As we know, the tradition of studying
material from textbooks dominates in our national academic school, especially
in the study of the social sciences. However, all references and sources on
cultural studies, philosophy and other social sciences written in English are
geared towards skilled audience. Internet sources are devoted to the
consideration of highly specialized topics. It is impossible to find a textbook for
foreigners that would have the information written in English. Furthermore,
there is very little information in foreign sources about Central Asian, namely,
Kazakh culture.
Thus, during the preparation for the Cultural Studies classes, the task arose
to prepare materials in English, set out in simple English, so that it would be
easier for students who do not have English as their native language. At the
same time, such kind of lectures, which would correspond to the Standard
Curriculum for the Course of Cultural Studies adopted in Kazakhstan. As a
result, the collection of lectures was supplemented with questions and test
assignments and it was made into tutorial.
This tutorial is based on the State Compulsory Educational Standards. It is
a summary of the key topics of the Cultural Studies curriculum for students of
experimental groups in English and for foreign students who do not have
English as their native language. Also, it was done according to the standards of
the credit-modular training system with the requirements of the Bologna
Process.
The main goal of cultural studies is to introduce young people with the
cultural achievements of mankind. This contributes to the development of
personal guidelines in the modern rapidly changing world, the development of
mutual understanding and productive communication between representatives of
different cultures. As a result of mastering this science, students should get an
idea of the diversity and intrinsic value of various cultures, be able to navigate in
the cultural environment of modern society and be able to participate in the
dialogue of cultures.
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 According to the typical course curriculum, the theoretical material is
structured into three chapters. The first chapter “The morphology of culture”
gives the content of the main concepts of culture, typologies of culture, provides
reviews of culturological schools, approaches and methods, formulates the key
problems of the theory of culture.
The second part - “History of Culture” - provides an overview of world
culture. Students get acquainted with various historical cultural achievements
and trends.
The third section “History of Kazakh culture” covers culture from the
period of formation of the first Turkic tribes to the present day. This includes
new topics, such as - “Monuments of sacral culture of Kazakhstan”, “Natural
cultural monuments”, “National museums-reserves of Kazakhstan” and others,
which received their coverage due to the State programs in the culture: “Madeni
Mura”, “Rukhani Zhangyru” and many other projects.
Self-test questions are given at the end of each theme, and test items are
given at the end of each chapter. At the end of the course, basic and additional
literature is presented.
Thus, this tutorial is focused on meeting the need for lectures in English
that correspond to the State Educational Standard of Education and the Model
Curriculum of Kazakhstan, as well as creating opportunities for expanding the
student’s cultural horizons, mastering the achievements of world and
Kazakhstani culture, developing their own position, critical and creative
thinking.

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 CHAPTER I. MORPHOLOGY OF CULTURE.
1 MORPHOLOGY OF CULTURE. THE LANGUAGE OF
CULTURE.
1.1 THE HISTORICAL FORMATION OF THE CONCEPT OF
CULTURE: THE DEFINITION OF THE CONTENT.
The central and fundamental category of cultural studies is the concept of
culture.
The term “culture” derives from the Latin word“colere”, which is most
often translated as “cultivation”, “processing”, “education”, “care”,
“reverence”. In the language of the ancient Romans, this word was closely
associated with production activities. It should be noted that the word cultura
comes from a verb that has a large number of meanings associated with the
sphere of production (“process”, “cultivate”, “garden”, etc.), and with the
spiritual, moral and creative activities of people in general (“take care”, “work
hard”, “decorate”, “respect”, etc.).
One of the earliest and most commonly used meanings of the word
“culture” in Rome was the cultivation of the land and the care of arable land.
In this terminological (special) meaning, the word cultura was used in the
treatise “De agri cultura” (“On Agriculture”), compiled by the Roman
politician and writer Cato the Elder (III-II centuries b.c.).
About a hundred years after Cato, the Roman philosopher and politician
Cicero (1st century BC) associated“culture” with the processes of human
mental and spiritual activity. In his writings, he used the phrase “cultura
ánimi” (literally “cultivating the soul”). Using his new terminology Cicero
explained culture as care, improvement. He wrote: “Just a fertile good ground
cannot be productive without cultivation, so the soul cannot be productive
without teaching... Now the cultivation of the soul is philosophy”.
During the Renaissance, the Cicero’s meaning of the term “culture”
regained its relevance, since the intellectual leaders of the era were humanists.
By the word “culture” the figures of the Renaissance began to mean harmony
in the development of man and the active manifestation of his inherent active-
creative principle.
At the end of the 17th century, the term “culture” acquired a new
meaning in the works of the German lawyer and historiographer Samuel von
Pufendorf (1632-1694). First, he began to use it to denote not a process (as in
antiquity and the Renaissance), but the very results of human activity.
Secondly, culture was confidently opposed by Pufendorf to the natural state of
man. From now on, culture is considered in itself, as an object, as a
phenomenon, as a class of things isolated from other things. Thus, Pufendorf
laid the foundation for the understanding of the concept of culture, for the first
time he designated the word “culture”.
French enlighteners of the 18th century (Voltaire, Condorcet, Turgot,
etc.) associated the content of the cultural and historical process with the
development of the human mind. The history of society was understood as its

6
gradual development from the stage of barbarism and ignorance to an
“enlightened” and “cultural” state. Ignorance was considered as the causes of
all vices, and human literacy and education was considered as the virtue. The
cult of reason became one of the essential dimensions of culture. Based on this,
the enlighteners believed that the “rationality” of the order of public and
political institutions was measured by the totality of achievements in the field
of sciences and arts, as well as the level of these achievements. Culture was
defined as a certain level of social achievement that characterized the level of
development of the human mind.
Classical understanding of culture:
The semantic space of the “classical model” is given by the antithesis
“culture - nature”. In the natural world, blind necessity reigns over the initial
determination of functioning laws, cause-and-effect relationships. In nature,
there are laws that do not depend on a person and his consciousness. There are
no goals, and therefore nature does not know values, does not cognize
meanings. The goal-setting ability is inherent only in man, since it is a man
who has the mind. The goal of a person is to transform the world around him.
The result is a world of culture, or “second nature”, i.e. an artificially created
reality.
The basis for understanding culture within the framework of the “classical
model” is formed by three principles: humanism, rationalism, historicism.
The principle of humanism, formed in the Renaissance (XIV-XVI
centuries) and rethought in the XVIII - early XIX centuries, boils down to the
fact that a person is an independent being, free and not dependent on either
natural forces or divine providence. He should not obey any authorities, any
external circumstances. Man is the creator of his life, the legislator of his
destiny. Through his own efforts, he is able to overcome the limitations of his
natural state.
The principle of rationalismasserts that human activity itself is carried out
not according to physical laws, but according to the laws peculiar only to
man. The philosophers of the 17th - early 19th centuries associated the special
nature of man with the presence of reason in him - the ability to act in
accordance with his rationally understood goals, i.e. freely, and not out of
natural necessity, like animals.
The principle of historicism requires consideration of all phenomena of
reality from the point of view of their origin and development. In relation to
culture, this means that a person as a creator of material and spiritual social
wealth does not remain constant. By creating and changing the world around
him, he thereby changes his appearance. In other words, man is not only an
independent and intelligent being, but also a historically developing subject.
Consequently, culture simultaneously acts both as a historical path of human
development and as the main result of this path.
Thus, the “classical model” of culture, created by the efforts of many
original thinkers of the late 17th - early 19th centuries, focused on

7
theeffectiveness and results of human rational and creative activity. It
defines culture as a special sphere that arises exclusively in human social
experience.
To define the concept of culture in the XX century the symbolic
approach had a great importance. One of the brightest representatives was the
German neo-Kantian philosopher Ernst Kassirer (1874-1945), a
representative of the Marburg school, author of the monumental three-volume
Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (1923-1929).
Cassirer took as a basis the human capacity of symbolization. According
to him, the origins of culture in a person’s ability to create artificial world,
denoting reality with symbols. Unlike an animal, a person exists in a symbolic
system created by him.
Man-made attributes of symbolic space are language, literature, art,
religion, socio-political ideology. They can make the perception of this reality
distorted and specific. That is why the perception of the world may differ from
person to person. Cassirer writes that a civilized person, unlike a savage,
interacts with things only with the help of artificial symbols. Based on this,
Cassirer proposes to call a person a “symbolic animal”.
Cassirer’s “philosophy of symbolic forms” most decisively influenced
the development of definitions of culture based on the principle of activity. In
accordance with this principle, culture appears simultaneously both as a way
of realizing the active principle in a person, and as a field for a person’s
creative self-realization.
Culture is a universal way of a person’s creative self-realization, which
consists in establishing meaning, as well as in striving to reveal and affirm the
meaning of human life. Thus, culture as a semantic world that inspires people
and unites them into a certain community. This semantic world is passed down
from generation to generation and determines the ways of being and the
perception of the world.
There are several scientific interpretation of culture likeaxiological,
civilizational, structuralist, anthropological, economic.
The axiological (value) approach understands culture as a set of the best
creations of the human spirit, the highest spiritual values created by people. By
the axiological concept, culture is a system of basic values of society.
According to the axiological approach, each of the ethnic and national
culturescreatevalues of universal human significance.W. Windelband and G.
Rickert were the first to create a theory of values.
Civilizational concepts of culturein cultural studies are the
comprehension of the cultural and historical processes in the context of a
pluralistic historical model based on an analogy with organic life.
Supporters of the civilizational concept believe that, like living
organisms, cultures go through a development cycle from birth to death. They
are absolutely unique, closed, their deep cultural meanings are inaccessible to
each other. Therefore, it makes no sense to talk about common paths of

8
historical development, its common goals and cultural universals. Adherents of
civilizational methodology come to the idea of cultural morphology through
rejection of linearity in the interpretation of the historical and cultural process.
The picture of the world as history appears as an eternal renewal, formation
and extinction of cultural forms. N.Danilevsky, O.Spengler, A.Toynbee
developed classical theories within the framework of this methodological
approach.
Structuralism tried to study culture on a strictly scientific basis using
exact methods of natural sciences (mathematical modeling, computerization,
etc.), to overcome descriptiveness in the analysis of culture. The structural
method was originally formed in linguistics largely thanks to the linguist F. De
Saussure. Structuralism appears in the works of such researchers as K. Levi-
Strauss, M. Foucault, J. Derrida, J. Lacan and others.
The basic tenets of structuralism: culture has approximately the same set
of features in different societies; it is not subject to influences and changes.
Such objectivity in structures (as a set of stable relations) does not depend on
consciousness, it is valid, thereby creating the possibility of scientific research.
Anthropological concept. Representatives are B.K. Malinovsky, K. Levi-
Strauss, A. Kreber. According to the concept, the emergence of culture is based
on human needs. B. Malinovsky contributed to the development of this
concept by dividing human needs into primary needs, which are aimed at
procreation, derivative and integrative needs. K. Levi-Strauss included the
methods of structural linguistics in the concept, emphasizing the process of
man’s transition from nature to culture. He developed a theory of the hierarchy
of cultural systems. A. Kroeber supplemented the anthropological concept
with the theory of styles of fundamental forms of culture, believing that style
was an integral feature of all major cultures.

1.2 FUNCTIONS OF CULTURE

The main function is human-making, or humanistic function. Cicero

spoke about it - “cultura animi”- cultivation of the spirit.
The cognitive function of culture consists in the fact that culture provides
integral knowledge about people, country and era. Through culture (science,
art, education, etc.) people get to know about themselves and previous
generations.
The informative function of culture is that culture transfers knowledge
and experience of previous generations. In culture, the historical memory of
an individual, nation, humanity is manifested. Historical memory islike legends
who speak orally about history,monuments, musical notes, works of art,
scientific works.
The communicative function of culture is that culture does not exist
without communication, it is formed through communication. This

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communication can be direct (communication between friends, relatives) or
indirect (we can communicate with other generations through books or music).
Regulatory (normative) function of culture is the regulation of various
aspects, types of social and personal activities of people. In the field of work,
everyday life, interpersonal relations, culture influences people’s behavior and
regulates their actions. The regulatory function of culture is based on such
normative systems as morality and law.
Semiotic, or sign, function of culture. Culture is a sign system. It is
impossible to master the achievements of culture without studying the
corresponding sign systems. Thus, language (oral or written) is a mean of
communication between people, literary language is the most important mean
of mastering national culture. The world of music, painting, theater - all of
them have their own signs. Natural sciences have their own sign systems.
The axiological, or value, function of culture reflects the most important
qualitative state of culture. Culture as a system of values forms a person’s
value needs and orientations. The level of culture of a person is evaluated by
his values.

1.3. HISTORY OF CULTURAL STUDIES AS A SCIENTIFIC

DISCIPLINE.

The word “cultural studies” appeared relatively recently, in the late 19th
- early 20th centuries. Many researchers began to use it along with
synonymous words and expressions. Thus, the English ethnographer and
anthropologist E.B. Tylor called the first chapter of his book “Primitive
Culture” (1871) “The Science of Culture”, and the outstanding German
physicist-chemist and philosopher V.F. Ostwald in his work “System of
Sciences” (1915) suggested calling the “science of civilization” or
“culturology” the field and the totality of studies “about specifically human
ways of activity.” Ostwald considered culturology one of the “sciences of the
20th century”.
The American anthropologist Leslie White introduced the term “cultural
studies”. This extraordinary man graduated from the sociology department of
the University of Chicago. White believed that culture is the most important
characteristic of society and man in general, independent of social laws and
economics, and that the history of mankind is in many ways the history of the
development of culture.
The term “cultural studies” was first used by the German scientist W.
Ostwald. However, it was L.White who introduced it to science in 1930, when
he taught the course “Culturology” at the university. Later, he expressed his
ideas in fundamental works: “Science of Culture” (1949), “Evolution of
Culture” (1959), “The concept of cultural systems: the key to understanding
tribes and nations” (1975). He also published several long articles, including in
the prestigious American journal ‘Science’ (1958).

10
 Introducing the term “culturology” itself, he raised the question of the
need for a strict definition of the subject of culturology, i.e. those objects,
phenomena that should be included in its competence. White believed that the
“discovery” of culture would be in the history of science on a par with
Copernicus’s heliocentric theory.
The comprehension of culture began in antiquity. However, culture turns
into a subject of scientific interest only in the 17th-18th centuries. Until the
middle of the XIX century, cultural issues were mainly concerned with
philosophy, history and ethnography. Many cultural concepts arose.
Culturologists from different countries and times viewed culture differently. So,
in the XVIII century there was a eudemonistic understanding of culture
(eudemonism is the doctrine of happiness), proceeding from the fact that the
goal of culture is to make people happy, and that this goal coincides with the
highest purpose of reason. The French enlighteners (Voltaire, Condorcet, and
many others) were representatives of eudemonism. In the middle of the XIX -
XX centuries, the ideas of “a multitude of cultures”, “cultural circles”, “the
death of culture”, “culture as a means of suppressing the personality” arose.
These ideas are generally characteristic of the works of many of the leading
thinkers of this period. Over time, this or that concept united scientists around
itself, forming culturological schools or trends. Let’s consider some of them (the
names of schools are conditional and may vary in different editions).
The socio-historical school united historians and philosophers who
considered the specifics of culture through the development of socio-historical
types of culture. This school usually included a Russian scientist N.Ya.
Danilevsky, the German thinker O. Spengler, the Russian philosopher N.A.
Berdyaev, German psychiatrist, philosopher and publicist K.Jaspers, the
English historian A. Toynbee, and others.
The naturalistic (psychoanalytic) school brought together doctors,
psychologists, and biologists. Representatives of this school were Austrian
psychiatrist Z. Freud, Swiss psychoanalyst K. Jung, German-American
psychologist and sociologist E. Fromm, British ethnographer, sociologist and
anthropologist B. Malinovsky, etc. The main feature of this school
wasemphasizing the biological conditioning of culture, sometimes significantly
exaggerating the role biological nature of human for culture.
The sociological school included those scientists who were looking for the
origins and explanation of culture of humanity in its social nature and
organization. Representatives of this school were Russian-American sociologist
P. Sorokin, German economist and sociologist A. Weber, German sociologist
and historian M. Weber, Anglo-American sociologist T. Eliot, and others.
The play school (the play theory of culture), which focused on the human
ability to play activity in the analysis of culture, was mainly represented by
German philosopher, the founder of philosophical hermeneutics H.-G.
Gadamer, Dutch cultural historian J. Huizinge (best known in this area) and
German philosopher-phenomenologist E. Fink.J. Huizinga considered playas

11
the basis and source of culture. He noted that play was older than culture
because the basic features of play wee already present in the animal world.
The symbolic school is the youngest and one of the most influential in
modern cultural studies. The emergence of this school was due to the excellent
development in the modern world of the media, which led to the creation of
anartificial information and symbolic environment, based on a variety of sign
systems, printing capabilities and mass audiovisual means of reconstructing
reality. The origins of the symbolic school were German philosopher E.
Cassirer and French sociologist and ethnographer K. Levi-Strauss. L. White
paid much attention to the problems of symbolization.
Culturology as a science seeks to identify the most general and essential
laws and patterns of the emergence, functioning and development of culture.
Cultural schools define and study the laws that operate on the scale of
local (individual) cultures or civilizations, as well as the laws that operate on the
scale of all mankind.

2. MORPHOLOGY OF CULTURE
2.1. THE MORPHOLOGY OF CULTURE: THE MAIN
COMPONENTS OF CULTURE.

The morphology of Culture is the doctrine of the internal structure of

culture, its organizational and functional structure. Culture is divided into
material and spiritual.
Material culture is associated with physical comfort, with the satisfaction
of the physical needs of humanity. Spiritual culture is the intellectual and
aesthetic activity of mankind. Material and spiritual cultures are often
interconnected. The material culture includes: the culture of work and
material production; culture of everyday life; topos culture, i.e. place of
residence (dwellings, houses, villages, cities); culture of attitude to one’s
own body; physical education. Spiritual culture acts as a multi-layered
education and includescognitive (intellectual) culture; moral, artistic; legal;
pedagogical; religious.
The structure of culture is viewed in different ways. Some culturologists
distinguish in it such subsystems as social culture, technological culture,
behavioral culture, ideological culture. The most common is the allocation of
two levels of culture as the main: specialized and ordinary (everyday culture).
The specialized level includes such cultural subsystems as economic,
political, legal, philosophical, scientific and technical, and artistic.
The ordinary (everyday culture)level includes household, manners and
customs, morality, practical technology, ordinary worldview and ordinary
aesthetics.
Thus, there are two levels of culture: the specialized and the ordinary.
Everyday culture is a set of ideas, norms of behavior, cultural phenomena
associated with the daily life of people. The specialized level of culture is

12
subdivided into cumulative (where professional socio-cultural experience is
concentrated, accumulated, society values accumulate) and translational. At the
cumulative level, culture acts as an interconnection of elements, each of which is
a consequence of a person’s predisposition to certain activities. These include
economic, political, legal, philosophical, religious, scientific, technical and
artistic cultures. Each of these elements at the cumulative level correspond to
an element of culture at the ordinary level. They are closely interconnected and
influence each other. Household management, family budgeting corresponds to
economic culture; political - way of life and customs; legal culture - morality;
philosophy - an ordinary worldview; religions - superstitions and prejudices,
folk beliefs; scientific and technical culture - practical technologies; artistic
culture - everyday aesthetics (folk architecture, the art of decorating a home). At
the translational level, there is an interaction between the cumulative and
ordinary levels, and the exchange of cultural information takes place.
There are communication channels between the cumulative and ordinary
levels:
- of education, where traditions, values of each of the elements of culture
are transmitted (passed on) to subsequent generations;
- mass media (SMC) - television, radio, print, where the interaction
between “high scientific” values and the values of everyday life, works of art
and mass culture is carried out;
- social institutions, cultural institutions, where knowledge about culture
and cultural values become available to the general public (libraries, museums,
theaters, etc.).

2.2. DIACHRONIC AND SYNCHRONOUS APPROACHES TO

CULTURE.

Indiachronic approachmainly deals with the historical culture. Its main

aim is to show the development of culture in different era. The diachronic
approach is faced with the task of an appropriate objective typologization of
culture.
Synchronous approach studies cultural processes taking place in different
regions simultaneouslywithin the same culture, however it doesn’t take history
into account. In the synchronous approach, the following types of the considered
cultural communities are distinguished:
- racial - ethnic cultural community
- national cultural community
- regional - historical cultural community
- cultural contrast between east and west
- world culture.
Diachronic (from Lat. Dia - through, through, hronos - time) is a
historically consistently unfolding process in time, fixing, capturing the changes
of one concrete historical form of culture to another (antiquity - Middle Ages -

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Renaissance - classicism). Synchronous (from Latin sin - together, hronos -
time) approach makes it possible to comprehend the distinctive cultural
processes taking place simultaneously in different spatial regions and continents
or within the same culture.
Diachronic - consistent development from era to era.
Synchronous - existing simultaneously.
Another diachronic version is presented by the formational (presented in
the works of K. Marx) approach. The formation typology of culture included the
following components: the culture of the primitive society, the culture of the
slave owner society, culture of the era of feudalism, bourgeois (capitalist)
culture, etc.

2.3. TYPOLOGY OF CULTURE: THE CONCEPT OF THE TYPE

OF CULTURE, HISTORICAL TYPOLOGY OF CULTURES, LINEAR
AND LOCAL APPROACH. CULTURE AS A WORLD OF SIGNS AND
MEANINGS.

The cultural world is diverse. Today there are many different cultures, and
each of them is unique. A typology of culture is a way to identify and designate
cultural types based on one or another basis. It allows us to systematize the
numerous manifestations of culture, to classify cultural practices.
- Historical typology of culture. There areprimitive, Ancient culture,
Medieval culture, culture of Modern times, Renaissance and so on. Each
historical type has a special cultural identity and is characterized by its own
features.
- National typology of culture. This typology of culture includes national
types (examples of national types of culture: Russian, Japanese, Mexican,
Spanish, Swedish, etc.). The types of national culture are characterized by signs
that reflect the mentality, worldview, values, ideals, stereotypes of the nation
(for example, originality of Russian culture).
- East and West. In this case, Western, Eastern, Latin American, African
and other types of cultures are distinguished.It is customary to distinguish
between Eastern and Western types of culture according to the ways of
understanding the world, norms of economic and political behavior, value
orientations, aesthetics, and mentality. The Western type of culture (countries of
Western Europe, North America, etc.) is characterized by such features as
dynamism, innovation, scientific knowledge, and technical modernization,
cultivation of personality and human rights, rationalism, active transformation of
the environment. The eastern type of culture (countries of the Middle East, Asia,
etc.) is characterized by imaginative thinking, intuitive cognition, tradition,
priority of the collective over the individual, the search for harmony with the
environment, stability, natural development, etc.
- Cultural typology based on cultural forms. In cultural studies, it is
customary to distinguish 3 cultural forms - elite, mass and folk culture. They

14
differ on the following grounds: who created the work on culture, what is the
audience (for whom this work is created), what is the level of skill and in what
extent this work is understandable. Based on this, all three cultural types have its
own features. Peculiaities of an elite culture is that it is created by highly
professional people - creators. It is difficult to understand (for example, it
requires experience and special knowledge in the field of classical music or
ballet art) and therefore the audience cannot be large in this case.
For a long time, cultural studies have been dominated by the Eurocentric
approach to the study of cultures: it seemed that Europe should have a special
historical mission - to show the path of development to all other cultures.
a) Linear cultural development concept.The division of time, its
representation as linearly directed from the past through the present to the future
has become generally accepted in Christian history. It is explained by the
doctrine of the birth of Christ, salvation and the end of the world. The turning
point that served to create a new scheme for the periodization of world history
and culture was the concept of the revival of education, scholarship and
literature of Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece. This new three-term
periodization - antiquity, the Middle Ages, modern times penetrated into
history only by the end of the 17th century. This concept was expressed in the
works of G. Hegel, K. Marx.
b) the concept of local development of culture
According to the local concept, each culture is a living organism that
develops according to its own laws. N. Danilevsky believed that all local
cultures go through three necessary stages of development: childhood, maturity,
old age. In accordance with this, he identified the following historical types of
culture: 1) Egyptian, 2) Chinese, 3) Assyrian-Babylonian-Phoenician 4) Indian,
5) Iranian, 6) Jewish, 7) Greek, 8) Roman, 9) Arabian, 10) German-
Romanesque.Another representative of the concept of local development of
culture was Oswald Spengler. He believed that, like any organism, each culture
and each person goes through stages birth, youth, maturity, withering.

2.4. THE CONCEPT OF THE LANGUAGE OF CULTURE. THE

LANGUAGE OF CULTURE AS A WAY OF BEING CULTURE

Culture is a system of communications, information exchange. Cultural

phenomena are systems of signs and symbols. There are various sign systems,
or languages of culture: natural language, written texts, folklore, traditions,
household items, rituals, etiquette and different types of art.
The language of culture is a set of all sign methods of verbal like talking
and non-verbal like shaking hands communication, with the help of which
culturally significant information is transmitted. The language of culture is
formed and exists only in the interaction of people, within a community that has
accepted the rules of this language. Mastering the language of culture is a key
element of socialization, acculturation.

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 Semiotics (analysis of the symbolic representation of the language of
culture), linguistics (analysis of natural languages), cultural semantics (study
of the language of culture as a means of expressing meaning) are engaged in the
study of the language of culture.
The language of culture (in a broad sense) is those means, signs, forms,
symbols, texts that allow people to enter into communicative connections with
each other, to navigate in the socio-cultural space. Culture appears as a semantic
world that determines the way of being and the perception of people, expressed
in signs and symbols.
A sign means a material object (phenomenon, event) that acts as an
objective substitute for some other object, property or relationship and is used to
acquire, store, process and transmit messages (information, knowledge). The
presence of the sign makes it possible to transfer information through technical
communication channels and its various - mathematical, statistical, logical -
processing. If a sign is a materialized carrier of an image, then a symbol is a
sign that has no objective meaning, through which the deep meaning of the
object itself is revealed. With the help of the symbol, man has found a way to
convey information by means that exceed the capabilities of language. For
example, coats of arms, emblems, banners, images - “bird-three”, “dove of
peace”, in addition to the visual and figurative form, convey abstract concepts
and ideas. Figurative-symbolic systems have particular importance in religion,
art (“artistic languages”). Moreover, each type of art introduces its own
figurative and symbolic language: the language of music, dance, painting,
cinema or theater, etc.
The connection of sign systems with reflection of realitis not direct.
Therefore, sign systems can be understood only in accordance with the cultural
code-system of semantic distinctive features.
A cultural code is a collection of signs and a system of certain rules, with
the help of which information can be interprete as a set of these signs for
transmission, processing and storage.
The most universal sign system is language.
By now, the following generally accepted classification of languages has
developed:
- natural languages as the main and historically primary means of
knowledge and communication (Russian, French, Estonian, Czech, etc.).
Natural languages do not have an author; they arise and change quite naturally
and independently of the will of people.
- artificial languages are languages of science, where the meaning is fixed
and there is a strict framework of use: unlike everyday speech, scientific speech
does not allow ambiguity, since science requires the utmost adequacy of
perception. Artificial languages also include conventional signal languages, such
as Morse code, road signs;
- secondary languages (secondary modeling systems) are communication
structures built on top of the natural language level (myth, religion, art).

16
 Among the sciences that study the problem of decoding information, we
will single out semiotics and hermeneutics.
Semiotics (from the Greek - “sign”) is the science of sign systems. This is a
modern science that claims to create a metalanguage. The English scientist who
pioneered semiotics was William Morris (1834-1896). He believed that the
concept of a sign could be as fundamental to the human sciences as the concept
of an atom for physics or a cell for biology. Thus, culture of society can be
studied through language as the most important of the sign systems.
Hermeneuticsis one of the ancient sciences. It was formed in the era of
early Christianity and began to be used in the interpretation of religious texts.
German philosopherHans Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) was the founder of
modern philosophical hermeneutics. Hedeals with the interpretation of the
text, not only reconstructing, but also constructing meaning.

3. SEMIOTICS OF CULTURE. ANATOMY OF CULTURE.

3.1. STRUCTURALISM, SEMIOTIC APPROACHES TO
CULTURAL RESEARCH.

Structuralism occupies a prominent place in modern cultural studies, the

main ideas of which were developed in the works of French scientists K. Levi-
Strauss, J. Derrida, J. Lacan, M. Foucault and others. The emergence of
structuralism as a direction in anthropology dates 50-60s of XX century.
Structuralism focuses on the study of the forms in which a person’s spiritual
cultural activity takes place. These universal forms are designated by the
concept of structure.The structure is interpreted as a set of relations that
remain stable over a long historical period or in different regions of the world.
These universal forms or “fundamental structures”, from the point of view of the
representatives of this trend, act as unconscious mechanisms that regulate all
spiritual and creative human activity. The simplest and most universal sign
system is language.
The purpose of structural analysis is to search for the backbone factor of a
given culture, in identifying common structural patterns of a certain set of
cultural objects. K. Levi-Strausssuccessfully applied the structural method of
analyzing culture in relation to primitive societies. M. Foucault applied this
method to the analysis of science in his work “Words and Things”, “Archeology
of Knowledge”, etc.
Semiotic concepts of culture
German philosopher Ernst Cassirer is the founder of the science of signs -
semiotics. He believed that the main factor in anthropogenesis is language.
Language is a kind of activity that distinguishes a person from a purely natural
existence. More precisely, language for Cassirer is a symbolic activity. Cassirer,
in search of an answer to his vital question of anthropology ‘who is a man’
reflects that we cannot define him through “essence” because we cannot find
such properties and qualities of anthropos that animals do not have. We cannot

17
define a person through abilities and instincts because they are also
characteristic of the animal world. Therefore, E. Cassirer proposes to determine
the foundations of human existence through activity. Cassirer’s definition is as
follows: “man is a symbolic animal.” The ability to create symbols
distinguishes a person from all other living things.
Unlike animals, man creates around himself a “symbolic environment”,
culture itself. He perceives the world not directly (stimulus - reaction), but
indirectly, through images and representations that have arisen in our
consciousness.

3.2. THE UNIQUENESS OF THE CULTURAL CODE OF THE

NATIONAL CULTURE.

Cultural code is the key to understanding this type of culture, unique

cultural features inherited by peoples from their ancestors; it is information
encoded in some form that allows the identification of a culture.
The cultural code defines a set of images that are associated with a complex
of stereotypes in the mind. This is a cultural unconscious, something that is
hidden from understanding, but manifests itself in actions. The cultural code of a
nation helps to understand its behavioral reactions, determines folk psychology.
There are three types of global cultural codes: preliterate (traditional),
written (book) and screen, which is currently in the stage of formation. Each
cultural type contains a basic cultural code. It is open to change and self-
generate new secondary cultural codes according to their connection with the
structures of social codes.
Scientists most often cite the concept of “language” as the closest example
of a code in meaning. Language is a certain way of the correct and logical
organization of the utterance (F. Saussure).
Examples of cultural code: the most important cultural code in ancient
cultures was the naming system. The names had a sacred meaning, often the
object bore two names - one “true”, the other “well-known”, since the name was
inseparable from the object and it was possible to perform magical rituals with
it.

3.3. THE CONCEPT OF A SYMBOL OF CULTURE. SYMBOLS

AND ARCHETYPES OF CULTURE.

A symbol consists of two components: a sign (externally perceived form)

and meaning (interpretation of a sign by an individual or a set of individuals).
Hence the sign is an object (material thing, phenomenon, event). The original
meaning of the word symbol (from Greek - “sign”, “sign”, “omen”) - it is a mark
or character used as a conventional representation of an object, function or
process.

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 A symbol in culture is a universal category and shown by the comparison
between objective image and deep image. Everything is based and organised
through cultural symbolism.Symbols tell us about the number of degrees of
freedom and exceeds the capability of humanperception.
A symbol in culture is a universal category that reveals itself through the
comparison of an objective image and deep meaning. Moving into a symbol, the
image becomes “transparent”, the meaning becomes clear. The aesthetic
information that the symbol carries in itself has a huge number of degrees of
freedom, far exceeding the capabilities of human perception.

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 3.4. SYMBOLS OF RELIGION.

Mythological consciousness was fixed in such basic symbols that

expressed ideas about the origin and structure of the Universe. For example, the
World Tree is a symbol that unites all fields of the universe, denoting the axis
of the world, and also embodying the idea of fertility (there are other
mythological incarnations of the pillar of the Universe, for example, the Cosmic
Mountain, etc.). These symbols were gradually simplified, taking the form of
geometric shapes and numbers. So, the World Tree began to be depicted in the
form of a cross; the lotus represented the Earth, which floats like a water
flower on the surface of the Ocean; the circle began to denote the Cosmos;
triangle - Fertility.
At all times, the symbols of religions displayed the visible image of the
Supernatural Forces with the help of allegory.Symbols of religions help
believers to realize and better understand their faith, they combine a meaningful
perception of faith with an emotional one.
Christianity is a religion based on the teachings of Jesus Christ. At the
first stages of its inception, the ichthus was the symbol of Christianity. This is a
picture of a fish. This symbol was taken from the parable of Jesus Christ
about fishing, the meaning of which was that fish are
unbelieving people, and fishermen are Christians who spread
the teachings of Christianity through the preaching of the
Gospel (p.1).
Picture 1. Fish.
Orthodox crossis made up of two crossed beams. The hands of Jesus
Christ were nailed to the horizontal bar. Above it is the upper, smaller crossbar,
meaning a tablet, nailed by order of Pontius Pilate, on which was
written "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews."(p.2). The slanting
crossbar at the bottom symbolizes the story of two robbers crucified
together with Christ, where the upward end of the crossbar reminds of a
forgiven robber who went to heaven, and the downward end reminds of
another who blasphemed God and went to hell.
Picture 2. Crossis
Islam. The main holy book of Muslims is the Quran. “Islam” is translated
as “peace and obedience to the Lord.” The symbol of Islam is the crescent
moon and five-pointed star. The five-pointed star denotes
the five pillars of Islam or the five main prayers, and the
crescent moon denotes commitment to the lunar calendar
(p.3).
Picture 3. Symbol of Islam.
Currently, there are many different disputes about the symbolism of Islam.
The crescent moon was not originally a symbol of Islam. After all, Muslims for
many years vehemently condemned worship of idols any images. They did not
have amulets and talismans, icons and religious attributes. In the beginning, the

20
crescent moon was a symbol of Ottoman rule. Therefore, both in the days of the
Ottoman Empire and in the modern world, the crescent is rather a symbol of the
Turkish people, just like crossed sabers and palms are the emblem of Saudi
Arabia. Muslims in this regard can use different images, the main thing is that
they do not contradict Sharia.
One of the oldest teachings in the world is Buddhism, which was founded
by the Indian prince Siddhartha Gautama. The symbol of the teaching is the
Dharmachakra or “wheel of the law”. In the center of the wheel is the hub,
symbolizing the point of consciousness.
The eight spokes of the wheel express the eight principles
on which the teaching is based: correct view, correct
thinking, correct speech, correct behavior, correct
lifestyle, correct effort, correct awareness, correct
contemplation (p.4).

Picture 4.Wheel of Buddhism

Judaism is the monotheistic religion of the Jews. The main meaning of
the teaching is belief in one, almighty, immortal God. Man is connected to him
through reason and immortal soul, communication with God is carried out
through prayer. The symbol of Judaism is the six-pointed star of David.
There are many interpretations of the symbol of Judaism. In ancient times it was
believed that this personifies all four fundamental principles: a triangle facing
upwards symbolizes fire and air, while another triangle, facing
downwards, symbolizes water and earth (p.5). According to
another version, the upper corner of the triangle facing upwards
symbolizes fire, the other two (left and right) symbolize water
and air. The corners of another triangle, one of the corners.
Picture 5. Star of David.
The teaching of Taoism originated in ancient China. The founder of facing
down, respectively: mercy, peace and grace.According to another
interpretation, the five ends of the star symbolize human desires, which must
obey the most important sixth end - the desire to submit to God in everything.
Taoism is considered Lao Tzu, who wrote the famous treatise “Tao Te
Ching”. In this religion, a person is perceived as an immortal substance, eternal
life is achieved by merging with Tao - the founder of everything in the Universe,
with the help of religious contemplation, physical and breathing exercises and
other methods of self-development. The concept of Taoism is graphically
expressed by Tai Chi - a symbol of a single limit.

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 This is a black and white circle called Yin and Yang,
where the black side expresses the feminine and symbolizes the
inner world, and the white is the outer, masculine side (p.6).It is
a symbol of unity, which simultaneously expresses the fusion,
interaction, separation and interconnection of all things.
Picture 6. According to Taoism, the goal of human existence is the balance
Symbol of and harmony of opposites.
Taoism. 3.5. SYMBOLS IN ART.

Symbolism has a great importance in the history of art and develops over
time along with culture. The semantic structure of the symbol is multi-layered
and is designed for the active inner work of the perceiver, i.e. viewer. The very
structure of the symbol is aimed at immersing each particular phenomenon in
the element of the “origins” of being and to give a holistic image through this
phenomenon. If a thing allows us to be examined, then the symbol itself seems
to “look” at us. The meaning of a symbol cannot be deciphered by a simple
effort of the mind, one must “get used to it”, and in order to do this, one must
know the symbol.
A symbol in art usually refers not only to the mind, but also to the feelings
of a person, his subconscious, generates complex associations. Such images are
called allegories. Ancient legends were viewed as collections of all kinds of
allegories.
Allegories are the most important tools for modeling images of reality.
They create an idea of what is not available to a particular image. If we do not
know the symbolic code, then it is impossible to guess the meaning of the
allegorical figure. For example, a monkey in chains. This is an indication of
evil, conquered by virtue. The butterfly is the resurrection hope shared by all
Christians. Caterpillar, case-worm, butterfly can denote the mysteries of life,
death and resurrection. Van Gogh’s
favorite symbolswere the path, tree, sun
and house.He felt timeless existence,
which allowed Van Gogh to embody his
special idea of the world in his paintings
(p.7).
Picture 7. Van Gogh. Wheat field with cypresses.
The symbols in art depends on the era, religion, culture of the people. If the
symbol is polysemantic, it is necessary to pay attention to the era, time, general
structure, the spirit of the picture. Symbol can be denoted by a number,
property, form. For example, the number 7 is a symbol of perfection and
completeness (seven colors of the rainbow, seven notes, seven days of the week,
seven virtues, seven deadly sins); blue (the color of the sky) is a symbol of
everything spiritual; the shape of a circle, reminiscent of the sun and moon, is a
symbol of divine perfection. There are another symbols - objects, phenomena, or
actions, as well as artistic images that embody any idea. For example, an olive

22
branch is a symbol of peace, a narcissus flower is a symbol of death, a baby is
a symbol of the human soul. Light is a symbol of spiritual insight, divine grace;
rainbow (meeting of Heaven with Earth) is a symbol of God’s reconciliation
with people, forgiveness of human sins. Weaving symbolizes the creation of the
universe, the world, the determination of the fate of all things; fishing -
conversion to one’s faith (Christ taught his disciples to be “fishers of men”). The
artistic image of the centaur is a symbol of base passions, strife (if depicted
with a quiver, arrows and a bow) in religious compositions is a symbol of
heresy.
There are many symbols in the paintings of Mantegna, Giovanni Bellini,
Botticelli, Jan Steen, Rubens and others, especially Dutch and Flemish artists.
Musical art speaks to us with the language of sounds. With the help of a
system of signs and symbols, music expresses the richest world of human
feelings. Even a single sound, taking into account all its sides - pitch, duration,
timbre, volume - is a sign. It may indicate shyness or confidence, constraint or
freedom, tenderness or rudeness. You can also talk about plastic signs that
reproduce a gesture, movement.
Instrumental works by various composers such as N.Paganini, F.
Mendelssohn, N. Rimsky-Korsakov and others became musical symbols in
music. The motive of fate - Symphony No. 5 by L. Beethoven can be called a
musical sign that became a symbol.
There are many such examples in the art of music. National anthems are
musical symbols that embody the unity of the people, their culture, pride in their
country.
Just like other fields of public life, politics has its own symbolic world.
Political symbolism consists of symbolic systems of various kinds. These State
symbols, coat of arms, flag, anthem are an integral attribute of sovereignty, an
indicator of the independence of the state.
Political symbols can be monuments of architecture and sculpture, for
example, the White House in Washington, MoscowKremlin, Chinese Wall,
Statue of Liberty in the USA, Peace Bell in Japan and others. Specific types of
political symbols are insignia, distinction and hierarchy, orders, medals, titles,
regalia, banknotes, conventional graphic symbols, Soviet hammer and sickle, all
kinds of stars, crosses, etc.

3.6. FORMS OF CULTURE: MYTH, ART, RELIGION,

MORALITY, PHILOSOPHY, LAW, POLITICS, SCIENCE,
TECHNOLOGY.

The cultural space is not an ordinary physical space, which is measured in

cubic meters, pounds. A cultural space is a space formed by a multitude of
cultural phenomena interacting with each other.
The cultural space is similar to the physical space of the Universe. Three
dimensions can also be distinguished in the cultural space. These three

23
dimensions are 1) knowledge, 2) values, 3) regulations. They correspond to
three intersecting “coordinate axes”: 1) “cognitive”, 2) “value”, 3) “regulatory”.
Cultural phenomena located in this three-dimensional space are grouped
into complexes and systems. Various configurations of cultural phenomena are
cultural forms of human life or forms of culture.
The concept of a cultural form is a form of human activity in which the
information-symbolic content of social life exists, is preserved and develops.
Cultural forms are extremely varied and numerous. Considering the cultural
space on the scale of all mankind, we can distinguish national cultures,
regional cultures, civilizations. These are the largest types of cultural forms.
Various other cultural forms have historically formed within them. In every
sufficiently developed culture, mass and elite culture is singled out as its
special forms.
Different peoples and in different historical periods of their existence
develop different cultural forms. These forms include religion, philosophy, art.
Culture is divided into material and spiritual. Mythology, religion, art,
philosophy are the main forms of spiritual culture.
Mythology is one of the earliest forms of culture, which included myths,
fairy tales, reflecting the spiritual and psychological life of the people of ancient
society. Totemic mythology: people believed in a kinship with animals, plants,
rocks, natural phenomena. Later, chthonic mythology arose based on people’s
belief in powerful creatures with a human beastly appearance.
Morality is a form of culture that includes people’s ideas about good and
evil, conscience and shame, guilt and justice, and includes prohibitions on bad
deeds and actions of people (taboos are the first moral prohibitions).
Art, as a form of culture, emerged already in primitive society, reflects the
reality and spiritual life of people in artistic images. Initially, all types of art
were fused, united, syncretic - combined into a single process - a ceremony, a
ritual. The era of antiquity highlighted certain types of art: dance, song, music,
painting, sculpture, architecture, theater, literature, poetry, cinema, etc.
Religion is a form of culture that reflects a person’s striving for life in
unity with God, who embodies the highest perfection. Depending on the concept
of God, religions are divided: into monotheistic (Judaism, Christianity, Islam
- belief in one God); pagan (polytheism - belief in many gods, oriental cultures);
philosophical teachings transformed into religion (Buddhism, Confucianism).
According to the degree of distribution in the world, there are: world religions
(Buddhism, Christianity, Islam), which are widespread; local religions, the
influence of which is limited to the framework of a certain region or people
(Judaism, Taoism).
Law is a form of culture aimed at the activities of the state to regulate
social relations between people, based on specially developed social norms -
laws that are binding on all citizens.
Science is a form of culture that produces new knowledge about the world
and man.

24
 Philosophy is a form of culture that formulates a generalized picture of the
world and a conceptual and categorical structure of people’s thinking.
Philosophy arose in the middle of the 1st millennium BC in three regions of the
world: in Hellas, India, China.

4. REVIEW OF THEORETICAL APPROACHES. BASIC SCHOOLS

AND CONCEPTS OF CULTURAL STUDIES.
4.1. EVOLUTIONARY SCHOOL OF CULTURAL STUDIES.

The evolutionary school was formed at the end of the 19th century, when
the ideas of evolutionism were widely spread in European science.This ideas
covered research in biology, ethnography, anthropology, and history of culture.
The core ideas of evolutionist explanations of social development:
1. The idea of human mental unity and uniformity cultural development;
2. Direct one-line development of cultures - from simple tocomplex;
3. Obligation to highlight the stages of development of each societies;
4. The idea of social progress - evolution dominates regression.
Lewis Henry Morgan (1818 - 1881) was an American ethnographer, one
of the founders of evolutionism in social sciences. In his main works he asserted
the idea of universality. He affirmed the idea of the universality of the
progressive development of society, which in its development passes through
three historical stages:
1. Wildness - the lowest level (lived in trees); middle stage (fish food); the
highest stage (invention of the bow and arrow).
2. Barbarity - the lowest stage (potter’s wheel); middle stage
(domestication of animals, cultivation of plants); the highest stage (iron
smelting).
3. The stage of Civilization is associated with the emergence state, class
society, cities, writing, etc.
Edward Burnett Tylor (1832 – 1917) was an English anthropologist, the
founder of cultural anthropology. Tylor’s ideas typify 19th-century cultural
evolutionism. In his works Primitive Culture (1871) and Anthropology (1881),
he believed that there was a functional basis for the development of society and
religion, which he determined was universal. Tylor maintained that all societies
passed through three basic stages of development: from savagery, through
barbarism to civilization. Tylor reintroduced the term animism (faith in the
individual soul or anima of all things and natural manifestations) into common
use. He regarded animism as the first phase in the development of religions.

25
 Herbert Spencer (1820 – 1903) was an English philosopher, biologist,
anthropologist, and sociologist famous for his theory of social Darwinism
whereby superior physical force shapes history. Spencer originated the
expression “survival of the fittest”, which he coined in Principles of Biology
(1864) after reading Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.
In his fundamental work “Foundations sociology” Spencer drew an
analogy between society and organism, the unity of the laws of nature for the
physical and moral worlds. In his research, Spencer transfers to human society
principles of biological evolution - natural selection and the struggle for
existence.
He believed that societies or cultures developed under the influence of
internal - anthropological (human physical nature, racial differentiation, variety
of mental qualities) and external determinants (geographic environment,
economic factors, conquests in the early stages of evolution, ways of life
support).
Spencer often used the concepts of “superior” and “inferior” races. He
was one of the first to formulate a hypothesis, which was later repeatedly
refuted“backward cultures were created by people physically, mentally and
morally underdeveloped”.
Classical evolutionism (E. Taylor, G. Spencer, G. Morgan) received its
ideological development in neo-evolutionism of L.White’s cultural-evolutionary
school.
Leslie White’s concept of cultures.
Leslie Alvin White (1900-1975) was an American anthropologist known
for his advocacy of theories of cultural evolutionism, sociocultural evolutionism,
neoevolutionism.
He was best known for his theories of the evolution of culture and for the
scientific study of culture that he called “culturology”. White firmly
supported cultural evolution along the lines laid down by the 19th-century
writers Lewis H. Morgan and Edward Tylor, even when this view was in great
disfavour.
In the 1920s, the functionalist ideas of Franz Boas dominated American
cultural anthropology.
For White, cultural evolution was generated by technological changes,
particularly with regard to the increased harnessing of energy per capita. White’s
evolutionary views put him in conflict with the anti-evolutionary theories
of Franz Boas and his supporters, who were then dominant in the field
of cultural anthropology.
White believed that in culture there are three clearly demarcated processes
and, as a result, three methods of interpreting them, complementary to each
other: historical, functional and evolutionary. The historical approach explores
temporal processes (sequences of events), functional analysis examines the
formal process - the structural and functional aspects of cultural development,
and evolutionism deals with the interpretation of the “formal-temporal process

26
representing a phenomenon in the form of a temporal sequence of forms”. For
example, if we take such a phenomenon as rebellion, then the historical
approach is designed to study specific rebellions, formal analysis will study the
general features of any rebellion, and the evolutionary approach will analyze
how and why the forms and types of rebellions have changed in the socio-
historical and cultural context.

4.2. PSYCHOANALYTIC (NATURALISTIC SCHOOL) SCHOOL.

At the end of the XIX - the first half of the XX century the psychoanalytic
interpretation of culture, presented by S. Freud, K. Jung and other scientists,
was very popular.
The main feature of the naturalistic school in cultural studies is the desire
to emphasize the biological conditionality of culture. This school brings together
primarily psychologists, physicians and biologists who try to explain culture
based on the psychobiological nature of man.
The concept of culture of S. Freud.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the
founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for
treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a
psychoanalyst.
In founding psychoanalysis, Freud developed therapeutic techniques such
as the use of free association and discovered transference, establishing its central
role in the analytic process. Freud’s redefinition of sexuality to include its
infantile forms led him to formulate the Oedipus complex as the central tenet of
psychoanalytical theory. His analysis of dreams as wish-fulfillments provided
him with models for the clinical analysis of symptom formation and the
underlying mechanisms of repression. On this basis Freud elaborated his theory
of the unconscious and went on to develop a model of psychic structure
comprising id, ego and super-ego. Freud postulated the existence of libido, a
sexualised energy with which mental processes and structures are invested and
which generates erotic attachments, and a death drive, the source of compulsive
repetition, hate, aggression and neurotic guilt. In his later works, Freud
developed a wide-ranging interpretation and critique of religion and culture.
The views on culture are based on his conviction in the contradiction
between the natural principle, the unconscious, sexuality and violence in man
and the norms of culture, which is based on the refusal to satisfy the desires of
the unconscious and exists at the expense of the sublimated energyof libido,
exercising strict control, censorship of instincts.
In constructing a theory of culture, he tried to consider in parallel
childhood and the formation of culture. According to Freud, beauty, cleanliness
and order take a special place among the requirements of culture. Although
they are not as important to life as the conquest of forces. But it is also
impossible to refuse them as something secondary.
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 Culture presupposes not only benefits, this is already evident in the
example of beauty, which we do not want to exclude from the interests of
culture. The benefits of order are obvious, cleanliness includes hygiene
requirements. It can be assumed that the benefits of cleanliness did not escape
the attention of people even in those days when there was still no scientifically
based prevention of disease. Freud believes that the element of culture is already
present in the first attempt toregulate social relations. Without such an
attempt, these relations would be subject to arbitrariness, that is, they would be
established depending on the interests and drives of a physically strong
individual.
Sigmund Freud investigated the individual unconscious as the natural
essence of the human soul. He discovered in a person the world of instinctive
uncontrollable desires at the unconscious level. Man in discord between natural
instincts attractions and forbidden norms of culture, between sexual
(spontaneous) and social (normative and cultural), between aggressiveness and
morality.
The higher a culture is developed, the stronger its side effects are: when a
culture requires more from a person than he can, it causes him to revolt or
neurosis, or makes him unhappy. This eternal contradiction between “you can”
and “you cannot”, “I want” and “I have no right” is removed at the level of a
compromise determined by sociocultural norms, attitudes and prohibitions: “it is
possible, but under certain conditions.” Culture, according to Freud, is a kind of
mechanism of social suppression of the free inner world of individuals, a forced
conscious refusal of people to satisfy their natural passions. Every culture is
built on compulsion and prohibition of drives.
Therefore, culture is always a compromise between spontaneous drives
and requirements of reality.
Freud discovered three levels of the psyche, three fields in man
consciousness: Unconscious It, Conscious I and Super-I.
1. Unconscious It - uncontrollable unconscious instinctual desires that
affect human behavior. This is an impersonal natural principle that concentrates
in itself two main primary drives:
1) sexual desires and
2) the drive for death (the drive for destruction).
The unconscious It is guided by the principle of pleasure.
2. Conscious I - afield of contact between the objective world and the
unconscious It. As a result of the interaction of the conscious selves of many
people, the world of culture is formed as a result of organized human activity.
3. Super-I - a kind of unconscious projection of the attitudes of the
world of culture into the human psyche.
The sexual-biological energy of this basic instinct was called libido by
Freud. But the energy of natural drives (libido) finds a way out not only in
sexual intercourse. It can be redirected, switched to the goals of cultural
creativity for the good of society, directing in a transformed form to serve the

28
high world of spiritual culture. Freud called this method sublimation (from the
Latin sublimo).Freud felt that this desire for compensation lay at the heart of
many of the greatest achievements in the arts, politics and science. Thus, a great
police detective might – at an unconscious level – be defending themselves,
their certain own illegal wishes. A politician committed to the plight of the poor
might be sublimating an early experience of raging greed. In an essay on
Leonardo da Vinci (Eine Kindheitserinnerung des Leonardo da Vinci, 1910),
Freud presented the claim that da Vinci had been an extremely sexually active
child, who had then sublimated his sexuality into scientific research and art. As
Freud put it, a forbidden desire for sexual pleasure (in this case, for his mother
and then other boys) had turned in da Vinci into a hugely honourable and
powerful ‘general urge to know’.

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 4.3. CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY SCHOOL

Franz Boas - founder of modern cultural anthropology.

Franz Uri Boas(1858–1942) was a German-born Americananthropologist
and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the “Father of
American Anthropology”. His work is associated with the movements known
as Historical Particularism and Cultural Relativism.
He was born in Minden (Germany) in 1858. From the late 1880s he lived
in America.
Refuting the evolutionary trend in anthropology prevailing at that time in
America, Franz Boasopposed the concept of unilinear evolution. On the
contrary, he put forward the demand for a thorough study of each individual
culture. Only after such a study can its theoretical understanding be undertaken.
Boas taught at Columbia University and his students, such as A.L.
Kroeber, K. Wissler, Robert Harry Lowy, E. Sapir, Alexander Goldenweiser,
Paul Radin, Ruth Benedict, formed the next generation of American
anthropologists. Their approaches to the study of primitive culture and religion
had much in common. First, it is following the imperative to conduct field
research and be fluent in local languages. Secondly, interest in “oral history”,
which ultimately meant an interest in mythology and religion. Third, the
maximum confidence in the messages of the informants and adherence to the
“direct quotation” method.
Franz Boas wrote several works on primitive mythology and religion.
Thus, during his field research he collected materials related to the religious
beliefs of the Kwakiutl Indians, a tribe to which he devoted his entire life, in a
special volume “Religion of the Kwakiutl Indians”. Boas mainly published
religious texts (prayers, myths, descriptions of rituals) and avoided making any
generalizations. At the same time, Boas made tremendous contributions to the
study of religion. In this regard, Boas’s work “Social Organization and Secret
Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians” is especially interesting, which led him to
psychological studies. The article “Ethnological significance of esoteric
doctrines” (1902) is adjacent to the above work. In it, Boas noted that it is
necessary to resolve the issue of the relationship between exoteric and esoteric
teachings in society, and to understand the ways in which esoteric ideas emerge.
Here he claimed that the religious beliefs of secret societies can be considered as
philosophical. F.Boas called for the simultaneous study of the beliefs of ordinary
people and representatives of secret communities, since they are closely
interconnected.
One of the important problems in Boas’s work was the problem of
primitive thinking. He did not recognize significant differences between the
thinking of primitive and so-called “civilized” peoples. However, the conditions
of primitive life influenced the formulations that primitive people did, so they
could be very different from the formulations of the Europeans. In this regard,

30
F.Boas formulated the theory of “cultural relativism”. Boas reveals these
questions in one of his most famous works “The Mind of a Primitive Man”.
F. Boas investigated dynamic changes in individual social communities.
At the same time, he paid special attention to the specific features of a particular
people, its language, culture, etc. He developed the theory of cultural
determinism. The main concept of the Boas school is “cultural area”. The
concepts of “cultural center” were also introduced - the area of the greatest
saturation of features and “marginal areas” where the features of border
regions are combined.
The essence of Boas’s position was that he denied the origin of culture
from one archaic type.
He emphasizedthat the cultural world consists of initially isolated
cultures. On this basis, he formulated his model of cultural history, according to
which: 1) two fundamentally different forms, initially isolated, come into
contact; 2) none of them arises from the other; 3) the mixing of the two forms
gives rise to new forms in the intermediate areas. Consequently, F. Boas
understood culture as a combination of elements that have an independent
meaning, and proved the incomparability of cultural values of different peoples.
The essence of Boas’s approach to ethnography is found in his early essay
on “The Study of Geography”. There he argued for an approach that considers
every phenomenon as worthy of being studied for its own sake.
In 2019 the NPR network produced a segment titled “How one
anthropologist reshaped social scientists thinking about race”. The discussion
centred on a new book by Charles King, a professor of international affairs at
Georgetown University, in Washington, DC, titled Gods of the Upper Air: How
a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the
20th Century.
One of the key figures in the book is Boas. “He was a revolutionary
because at the time he started doing this new kind of social science, which he
and his students had to name as cultural anthropology, there was widespread
consensus about this idea of cultural, racial, gender hierarchy – that the natural
order of the world was one in which you had folks at the top and folks at the
bottom, and you stayed in those categories over the entirety of your life, and
those categories were inheritable” - King told NPR. - “So from literally cradle
to grave, you work inside this hierarchy. He worked very hard to teach people
that was a product of our own society, not of God or nature”.

4.4. SOCIO-HISTORICAL SCHOOL OF LOCAL CULTURES

The main feature of the socio-historical school in cultural studies is the

cyclical theory of the development of culture - the doctrine of a multitude of
cultures that are equivalent in terms of maturity. It became the complete
opposite of the Eurocentric scheme of linear historicism.

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 Oswald Spengler (1880 - 1936)was a German historian and philosopher
of history whose interests included mathematics, science, and art and their
relation to his cyclical theory of history. He is best known for his two-volume
work, The Decline of the West (Der Untergang des Abendlandes), published in
1918 and 1922, covering all of world history. Spengler’s model
of history postulates that any culture is a superorganism with a limited and
predictable lifespan.
The main work is “The Decline of Europe” (1918). It developed a new
concept of culture, which later had a great influence on the formation of
historical and cultural thought of the XX century. The main meaning of
Spengler’s concept is that the entire world culture consists of separate
organisms, closed and independent from each other, each of which has its own
characteristics of development and a certain period of existence.
Spengler’s basic thesis, namely that cultures and civilisations are living
organisms in their own right, just like plants, animals and humans, although of a
much higher rank. Each culture has its own distinctive soul, which expresses
itself in artistic, scientific, political, economic and religious forms.
Spengler identifies eight higher organisms: 1) Egyptian; 2) Indian; 3)
Babylonian; 4) Chinese; 5) Greco-Roman; 6) Maya; 7) Byzantine-Arabic; 8)
Western European.
Just as a human being reaches puberty during the second, and full
adulthood in the third decade of life, a culture also passes through phases of
predetermined sequence whose durations do not vary greatly from one higher
organism to another. Its ‘springtime’ is characterised by strong religious faith,
which slowly gives way to increasing intellectuality and materialism. A
culture’s ‘summer’ is an era of great creativity: in Europe, this witnessed the
crystallisation of a totally new concept in mathematics (calculus) simultaneously
in the minds of two people working quite independently – Newton and Leibniz.
The same centuries saw the birth of oil painting and the flowering of a style of
music completely unknown before the advent of Western Culture.
During ‘autumn’, life becomes dominated by materialism and by purely
rational thought; Spengler uses the term “Civilization” to denote this particular
phase. Warfare between the culture’s constituent nations increases in intensity,
with tensions between various strata of society also reaching breaking point.
Eventually, one state becomes vigorous enough to conquer and absorb all others,
imposing an authoritarian Imperium. In the Classical world this was achieved by
the Romans, and in Peru by the Incas. In Central America, the Aztecs were
consolidating their gains when Spanish Westerners intervened. In eastern Asia,
it was the state of Qin (Ch’in) which ultimately incorporated the rest, giving the
name China to the integrated empire.
Nikolai Yakovlevich Danilevsky (1822 - 1885) was Russian writer and
naturalist. Danilevsky’s views coincided with those of O. Spengler. Danilevsky
was the ideologist of “Pan-Slavism” - a trend that proclaims the unity of the
Slavic peoples.

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 Danilevsky created the theory of cultural-historical types or civilizations.
They, like living organisms, are in a continuous struggle with each other and
with the environment, going through three stages: ethnographic (preparatory -
1000 years), political (formation of statehood - 400 years) and civilization
(flourishing - 50-100 years). The cycle ends with a long period of decline and
decay. Every cultural-historical type manifests itself in four pillars: religious,
political, socio-economic and proper cultural.
Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975), an English historian, philosopher,
diplomat and public figure, was considered to be the founder of the concept of
local cultures. The main work “Comprehension of History” in twelve volumes
was created under the influence of the works of O. Spengler. Toynbee used the
term “civilization” as a synonym for “culture.”
The main idea is that Toynbee divided all civilizations into two groups: 1)
those that were fully developed and 2) those that failed. In turn, he divided the
former into independent and satellites. The independent ones were then split
into: 1) civilizations not related to others (Middle American, Andean); 2)
civilizations that are not derived from others (Sumerian-Akkadian, Egyptian,
Aegean, etc.); 3) civilizations generated by others (Syrian, African, Orthodox
Christian, Western, etc.).
A. Toynbee believed that each civilization in its development goes
through four stages: emergence, growth, decay and death, after which another
takes its place. Thus, we are talking about the cycle of civilizations. In total, he
counted 36 civilizations, 21 of which have been thoroughly researched and
described over six thousand years of human history. Until now, according to
Toynbee, five “living” civilizations have survived: 1) Western, which is united
by Western Christianity; 2) Islamic, stretching from North Africa and the
Middle East to the Great Wall of China; 3) the Far East, including the southeast
of Asia; 4) Hindu; 5) Orthodox Christian (Byzantine), which included
southeastern Europe and Russia. It follows from this that Toynbee divided
civilizations according to religion, and not according to ethnic or linguistic
characteristics.

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 CHAPTER II.HISTORY OF CULTURES.
5.CULTURE OF FIRST CIVILIZATIONS.
5.1. CULTURE OF PRIMITIVE SOCIETY.

Primitive culture is an archaic culture that characterizes the beliefs,

traditions and art of peoples who lived more than 30 thousand years ago.
Primitive culture mainly encompasses the art of the Stone Age.
Experts suggest that the genres of primitive art arose in approximately the
following time sequence:
■ stone sculpture;
■ rock painting;
■ pottery.
In ancient times, people used stone, wood, and bone for art. Much later, in
the era of agriculture, the first artificial material was discovered known as
refractory clay. At first, it was usedfor making of dishes and sculptures.
Wandering hunters and gatherers used wicker baskets as they were easier to
carry. Pottery is a sign of permanent agricultural settlements.
The first works of primitive art belong to the Aurignac culture (late
Paleolithic), named after the Aurignac cave (France). Since that time, female
figurines made of stone and bones have become widespread. The high point of
cave painting about 10-15 thousand years ago but the art of miniature sculpture
reached t it’s peak much earlier - about 25 thousand years. This era includes the
so-called “venus” - figurines of women 10-15 cm high. Similar “venus”are
found in France, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Russia and many other regions
of the world. Perhaps they symbolized fertility or they were associated with the
cult of the mother-woman. Scientists consider female sculptures to be the first
anthropomorphic, humanoid images.
In both painting and sculpture, primitive man often depicted animals.
Addiction of primitive man to depict animals is called the zoological or animal
style in art, and for their miniature sizes small figurines and images of animals
were called plastics of small forms.
Both zoological paintings and anthropomorphic figurines suggested their
ritual use. In other words, they performed a cult function.
Since the images of animals had a magical purpose, the process of their
creation was a kind of ritual. Such drawings were in caves, in underground
passages. The first drawings were discovered in the 19th century in the caves of
the Pyrenees Mountains. Rock carvings created by paint or carved with stone
were found there. Some caves are unique underground galleries (the Altamira
cave in Spain is called the “Sistine Chapel” of primitive art), the artistic merit
of which today attracts many scientists and tourists.
In 1895, drawings of primitive man were found in the La Moute cave in
France. In 1901, about 300 images of mammoth, bison, deer, horse, bear were
discovered in the Le Combatel cave in the Weser Valley. Not far from Le
Combatel in the von de Gaume cave, archaeologists have discovered a whole

34
“picture gallery” - 40 wild horses, 23 mammoths, 17 deer. For creating rock
paintings, primitive man used natural dyes and metal oxides, which he either
used in pure form or mixed with water or animal fat.
The most important moment of the agricultural civilization was the birth
of ancient architecture. The earliest form of human habitation was camps -
temporary unfortified camps of primitive hunters and gatherers. The settlements
of Stone Age hunters were replaced by settlements of farmers, which took the
form of a fortress (structures made of huge roughly hewn stones) or settlemens.
They lived in either groups of residential buildings or in outbuildings which
were surrounded by an earthen rampart orwooden fence. Over time, the art of
burial arose at the intersection of sculpture, architecture and religion.

5.2.THE CULTURE OF THE FIRST ANCIENT EASTERN

CIVILIZATIONS

The first centers of civilizations were located on the river shoresfor

example: on the Nile - Ancient Egypt; on the Tigris and Euphrates - the
Mesopotamian kingdoms; on Indus -Indian kingdoms; on the Yellow River -
the Chinese kingdoms.
Culture of Ancient Egypt.
Farmer settlements appeared in the Nile Delta around 4200 BC. Residents
here raised pigs, cattle, sheep and goats, and cultivated wheat and barley. Unlike
Mesopotamia, where they needed ti fight with the deceptive and unpredictable
elements of nature, the Egyptians could well trust the regular annual floods of
the Nile. Natural rhythmhad a profound impact on the development of Egyptian
civilization. From June the water level began to rise. When the water receded,
people returned to the fields, measured their plots, sowed grain, and the harvest
began in May. Nile water was trapped in huge reservoirs, from where it was
supplied to the fields through a network of canals. A fairly reliable calendar was
created to predict floods and was associated with the year of Sirius. The
creation of the calendar was an evidence of the high level of astronomy of in
Egypt.
The first and perhaps the most important feature of the ancient Egyptian
civilization is the sacralization of state power. Pharaoh possessed absolute
power: all of Egypt with its colossal natural, land, material, labor resources were
considered the property of the pharaoh. Strong centralized authority relied on the
Doctrine of the divine origin of the Pharaoh. The Egyptians believed that
everything that happens depends on God and that every event is predetermined.
The main state cult was the Deity of Sun Ra. Pharaohs were considered living
gods.
The unique role that the pharaoh played in ancient Egypt reflected by
massive scale of pyramids.

35
 The pyramid’s smooth, angled sides symbolized the rays of the sun and
were designed to help the king’s soul ascend to heaven and join the gods,
particularly the sun god Ra.
Ancient Egyptians believed that when the king died, part of his spirit
(known as “ka”) remained with his body. To properly care for his spirit, the
corpse was mummified, and everything the king would need in the afterlife was
buried with him, including gold vessels, food, furniture and other offerings. The
pyramids became the focus of a cult of the dead king that was supposed to
continue well after his death. Their riches would provide not only for him, but
also for the relatives, officials and priests who were buried near him.
The oldest and largest of the three pyramids at Giza, known as the Great
Pyramid, is the only surviving structure out of the famed Seven Wonders of the
Ancient World. It was built for Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops, in Greek).
The sides of the pyramid’s base average 755.75 feet (230 meters), and its
original height was 481.4 feet (147 meters), making it the largest pyramid in the
world. Three small pyramids built for Khufu’s queens are lined up next to the
Great Pyramid, and a tomb was found nearby containing the empty sarcophagus
of his mother, Queen Hetepheres.
The middle pyramid at Giza was built for Khufu’s son Pharaoh Khafre
(2558-2532 B.C). The Pyramid of Khafre is the second tallest pyramid at Giza
and contains Pharaoh Khafre’s tomb. A unique feature built inside Khafre’s
pyramid complex was the Great Sphinx, a guardian statue carved in limestone
with the head of a man and the body of a lion. It was the largest statue in the
ancient world, measuring 240 feet long and 66 feet high.
The Egyptians created a writing system that included both ideographic
and phonetic symbols. The Deity Thoth was the god of wisdom, counting and
writing (usually he was depicted as a man with the head of an ibis). He was one
of the main deities of Ancient Egypt. Thoth was credited with creating the entire
spiritual life of Egypt. He invented writing and taught people to count and write.
Pictographic writing in the form of hieroglyphs was used as an attribute
of power. Hieroglyphs (drawing signs) - an ancient Egyptian script - have been
in use since 3000 BC. e.
In the XIV century BC.ancient Egyptian sculpture reached its
heyday.The best that was created during this period are sculptural portraits of
Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti. For the first time in the history of Egyptian
art, an image of the pharaoh appeared with his family. A portrait of Nefertiti in
a high crown has become a symbolic image of Egypt.
The Hellenistic period began with the conquests of Alexander the Great in
332 BC. Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire.
Greek and Roman influences, especially the spread of Christianity, led to
the loss of the distinctive Egyptian culture. Ancient temples were closed,
hieroglyphic writing was forgotten. In the VII century BC. Egypt was conquered
by the Arabs, who also changed the ethnic character of the country.
Culture of Mesopotamia.

36
 Mesopotamia was the land lying between the rivers of Western Asia - the
Tigris and the Euphrates. The civilization dates back to the IV millennium BC.
The culture and civilization in the Mesopotamia was at the same level as
Egyptian civilization.
Unlike the more unified civilizations of Egypt or Greece, Mesopotamia
was a collection of varied cultures whose only real bonds were their script, their
gods, and their attitude toward women. In Mesopotamia various state formations
rapidly (by historical standards) replaced each other: Sumer, Akkad, Babylon
(Old and New), Assyria, Iran. Here different peoples mixed, traded, fought
with each other, temples, fortresses, cities were quickly erected and destroyed to
the ground. The history and culture of Mesopotamia were more dynamic than in
Egypt.
As a result of this, Mesopotamia should be more properly understood as a
region that produced multiple empires and civilizations rather than any single
civilization. Even so, Mesopotamia is known as the “cradle of civilization”
primarily because of two developments that occurred there, in the region
of Sumer, in the 4th millenium BCE:
 the rise of the city as we recognize that entity today.
 the invention of writing (although writing is also known to have
developed in Egypt, in the Indus Valley, in China, and to have taken form
independently in Mesoamerica).
The invention of the wheel is also credited to the Mesopotamians.
Other important developments or inventions credited to the
Mesopotamians include, but are by no means limited to, domestication of
animals, agriculture, common tools, sophisticated weaponry and warfare,
the chariot, wine, beer, demarcation of time into hours, minutes, and seconds,
religious rites, the sail (sailboats), and irrigation.
The first inhabitants appeared in Mesopotamia about 40 thousand years
BC. e. Small groups of people lived in caves and hunted mountain goats and
rams.
In the X millennium BC.people began to engage in agriculture and moved
to settled life; they learned how to build huts from grass and twigs and houses
from adobe bricks (bricks were made from clay with addedchopped straw).
There were about two dozen city-states in the IV-III millennia BC on the
territory of Mesopotamia. The largest were Ur, Uruk, Kish, Umma, Lagash,
Nippur, Akkad. The youngest of these cities was Babylon, built on the banks of
the Euphrates. Its political and cultural significance had steadily increased.
Babylonwas bound to play an extremely important role in the history of
Mesopotamia.
In general, researchers designate the early culture of Mesopotamia as the
Sumerian-Akkadian. The double name is due to the fact that the Sumerians
and the inhabitants of the Akkadian kingdom spoke different languages and had
different scripts.

37
 Writing was a great achievement of the Sumerian-Akkadian culture. It
was borrowed and developed by the Babylonians and spread widely throughout
Asia Minor: cuneiform was used in Syria, ancient Persia, and other states. In the
middle of the II millennium BC cuneiform became an international writing
system: even the Egyptian pharaohs were familiar with the writihg system and
used it. In the middle of the 1st millennium BC cuneiform became alphabetic.
According to modern orientalists, Sumerianswere the ancestors of the
famous Babylonian culture. Their cultural achievements are great: the
Sumerians created the first poem in human history - The Golden Age, wrote the
first elegies, and compiled the world’s first library catalog. The Sumerians are
the authors of the world’s first and oldest medical books - collections of
recipes. They were the first to develop and write down the calendar of the
farmer, left the first information about protective plantings. Even the idea of
creating the first fish reserve in human history was first recorded in writing by
the Sumerians.
Subsequently, in the III centure B.C., the Babylonian priest Berossus
wrote a consolidated work on the ancient Sumerian-Akkadian history. We know
from Berossus that the Babylonians divided the history of their country into two
periods - “before the flood” and “after the flood.” He wrote about ten kings who
ruled before the flood. His information about the reign of the first kings after the
flood was also fantastic. Berossus’ works, however, were widely known and
popular, and his data were not very much disputed.
The most important monument of Sumerian literature was the cycle of
legends about Gilgamesh. He was the legendary king of the city of Uruk. In
these legends, the hero Gilgamesh is presented as the son of an ordinary man
and the goddess Ninsun. Gilgamesh’s wanderings around the world in search of
the secret of immortality and his friendship with the wild man Enkidu are
described in detail. The legends about Gilgamesh had a very strong impact on
world literature and culture.
The heir to the Sumerian-Akkadian civilization was Babylonia. Its center
was the city of Babylon (Babili means “The Gate of God”), whose kings in the
II millennium BC were able to unite under their rule all the regions of Sumer
and Akkad. The heyday of the Old Babylonian kingdom fell on the reign of the
sixth king of the I Babylonian dynasty - Hammurabi. Under him, Babylon
turned a small city into the largest economic, political and cultural center of
Western Asia.
Under Hammurabi, the famous Code of Laws that was written in
cuneiform on a two-meter stone pillar were adopted. These laws reflected the
economic life, life and customs of the inhabitants of the Old Babylonian
kingdom. From these laws we know that a free, full-fledged citizen was called
“avilum” - a man. This group of the population included landowners, priests,
communal peasants, artisans along with the traditional craft specialties, such as
builders, blacksmiths, weavers, tanners, etc., also included doctors,
veterinarians, barbers.

38
 Temples dedicated to the gods played an important role. Temples
inMesopotamia were known as “Community Temples”. Templs were the most
important cultural and economic centers in the cities ofMesopotamia. Temples
were operated by priests and priestesses that were often younger relatives of the
rulers. Their main role was to intervene with the gods for the fortune of their
communities through prayers and offerings to their deities. In exchange, the
community provided priests with food, drink, and clothing. Each temple was
dedicated to a major deity, who was the main god of the city. Often the priests
serving the temple might have been the former governor of that particular city-
state.
Temple communities in Mesopotamia also had an influence in the
economy and social living of the cities. Among many of their functions, the
operation and maintenance of irrigation systems was one of their highest
priorities. They also controlled and managed the industry while developing and
manufacturing products that later would be exchanged in foreign trade. Along
with this, temples were extensive places for storaging goods and
merchandise.They traded with near and far countries and were engaged in real
estate transactions; they had workshops, archives, libraries and schools.
Temples were built to demonstrate the power of their deity. The classic
form of Mesopotamian temples was a high stepped tower - the Ziggurat (mid-
7th century BC).
The most famous ziggurat in history can be considered the temple of the
god Marduk in Babylon - the famous Tower of Babel, the construction of which
is referred to in the Bible as the Babylonian pandemonium.

5.3. Culture of Ancient India and Ancient China.

Culture of Ancient India. India is

one of the greatest ancient civilizations.
The first centers of Indian culture
known as Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro existed
already in the 3rd millennium BC on the
banks of the Indus. The culture of Harappa
became the basis for further cultural and
social evolution (p.9).
Indus Valley people, known as
Dravidians, discovered the use of metals,
made tools out of metals and in addition to
this they developed their own form of
writing. They seem to have had peaceful
social structure, which had changed with
invasion of the Aryans.

Picture 9. Ancient India.

39
 Picture 10. Harappa.
Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, two great cities flourished along the valley of
Indus River. The civilization was discovered after excavations at Harappa in
west Punjab and Mohenjo-daro in Sindh in the 1920s (p.10). The twin cities had
a similar layout and planning. The ruins of these cities show that the civilization
was technologically advanced with the knowledge of efficient municipal
government and urban planning. 
The cities’ urban plan included the world’s first-ever urban sanitation
systems. The towns had a proper wastewater management system that was much
better than those in many places in India and Pakistan today.  The people of the
towns had trade networks and domesticated animals.
The discovered settlements had elements of a vivid original ancient
civilization. The structure of the urban settlement amazes with the perfection of
the layout and the level of civilization: two-story brick houses on straight streets
were planned strictly perpendicularly; the corners of the houses were rounded at
the crossroads, apparently for a more convenient turning of carts and people; a
system of ceramic pipes underground along the streets for sewage - the most
advanced urban sewage system of the Ancient East.
In the first half of the 2nd millennium BC.there was a gradual decline of
the Harappan culture, which had disappeared by the middle of the millennium.
According to one of the most common versions in the middle of the II
millennium BC. e. Indiawas invaded and settled in the eastern and southern
directions by the tribes of the Aryans, who spoke Indo-European languages.
Mostly pastoralists, they kept the rituals of nomads for a long time. However,
then the Indo-Aryans began to engage in agriculture, using a heavier plow
40
drawn by several pairs of bulls. Along with sowing barley, crops were grown
that required artificial irrigation (rice, sesame seeds, sugar caneetc.), cotton
plantations expanded.
The greatest monument of spiritual culture is the Vedas (literally
knowledge) which is the monuments of ancient Indian literature of the late II -
early I millennium BC. These works are written in Sanskrit (lit. purified,
processed) - one of the main ancient Indian languages. The Vedas are based on
four collections: Rig Veda (book of hymns), Sama Veda (collection of rituals
and chants), Yajur Veda (prayer formulas for performing sacrifices), Atharva
Veda (collection of chants and incantations). Along with the religious aspects,
the Vedas included both fables and fairy tales, sometimes with elements of
satire.
Even though the Indo-Aryans lived the nomadic life but at the begining of
I millennium BC, the Indo-Aryans started agricultural oractices and started the
permanent civilization. Numerous religious teachings of early society in India in
the first centuries BC constituted a religious trend - Brahmanism. According to
the new cosmogonic theory, the creator of the universe Brahma is born from a
golden egg floating in a huge ocean. The power of his thought divides the egg
into two parts - heaven and earth. In the process of subsequent creation, the
elements are formed (water, fire, earth, air, ether), gods, stars, time, relief, etc.
People, masculine and feminine principles, opposites (heat - cold, light -
darkness, etc.), flora and fauna are created.
The transition to Brahmanism has not yet revealed a single hierarchy of
gods. Each locality had its own supreme deity worshiped. God Shiva was
considered the embodiment of the destructive forces of nature and a symbol of
fertility. God Vishnu acted as god - the guardian of everything that exists. A
significant role was played by animistic ideas and the cult of ancestors. The
most important key element of Brahmanism is samsara (Skt. Wandering,
transition, reincarnation of the soul or personality) - the theory of rebirth;
according to this teaching, with the death of a person, his soul migrates into a
new being.
Karma, although predetermined from above, can be corrected by a
person’s actions. His high spirituality and virtue, self-discipline, rejection of
hatred, suppression of envy, study of the Vedas, veneration of brahmanas, etc.
can lead in the chain of rebirths to a high position in society, and in the future
they open up prospects for further improvement.
In the process of the formation of the first slave-owning states, the
division of people into groups, differing in social status, rights and obligations,
was gradually determined - varnas . The tribal nobility made up two privileged
varnas - brahmanas (priests) and kshatriyas (military nobility, kings, princes).
Representatives of these varnas occupied the highest positions in the
administrative apparatus and in the army. The most numerous third varna - the
Vaishievs - were free community members who were engaged in agriculture,
crafts, trade. The lowest varna - the sudras - consisted of “strangers”, the

41
descendants of the conquered tribes.They did not have the right to communal
property and were called to serve the representatives of the first three varnas.
The palace of King Ashoka was a great work of art with perfection and
grace. Three halls, located one above the other, stone and wooden columns,
entwined with golden vines, emphasized the monumentality of the forms and the
luxury of decoration. Repetitive and evolving examples of folk wooden
architecture, balconies and arches alternated on the palace facades.
Mainly in the period of Ashoka, the art and architecture was at its zenith
and fall within the category of court art. Ashoka embraced Buddhism and the
immense Buddhist missionary activities that followed encouraged the
development of distinct sculptural and architectural styles. During the reign of
the Guptas, material culture achieved significant development. Agriculture
improved: soil classification and crop rotation were introduced, fertilizers were
widely used, new agricultural crops were being mastered (in particular, indigo),
silkworm breeding, artificial irrigation, etc. were spreading. Notable successes
have been achieved by artisans in the manufacture of weapons and jewelry, the
finest fabrics of silk and cotton. Black polish type pottery was introdused.
Painting reached the peak level.
Major advances were achieved in the construction of stone buildings.
Cave temples are became traditional, for the construction of which complex
calculations were used. The creation of such temples required huge expenditures
of human labor, great art in monumental and artistic stone processing.
The wealth and luxury of Gupta art is evidenced by the abundance of
sculpture, carvings and paintings inside the caves and on the facades of the
temples of Ajanta. Monumental painting covered the walls and ceilings of about
three dozen caves and reflected the richness and breadth of life impressions,
which were based on realistic folk traditions and various plots from the life of
Buddha, magnificent patterns, images of nature, court and everyday scenes.
A distinctive feature of ancient Indian culture was the veneration of
knowledge, which originated in ancient times. Indian science developed and
improved in subsequent eras. The development of astronomy was pushed by the
needs of irrigated agriculture. Ancient Indian astronomers divided the year into
12 months of 30 days each, every 5 years a 13th month was added. The year
consisted of six seasons, two months each. The idea was put forward about the
sphericity of the Earth and its rotation around its axis. The position and
movement of celestial bodies in relation to the celestial equator, etc. were
calculated quite accurately.
The ancient Indian mathematicians made a significant contribution to the
treasury of world science. They formulated the decimal number system.
Exactly in Indiathe generally accepted system of drawing numbers (a positional
system in which the value of each digit was determined by its position including
zero) was created. This system was later adopted by the Middle Eastern peoples
and was used in a slightly modified form in Europe under the name of Arabic
numerals. Even though, the Arabs themselves called them Indian numbers.

42
Treatises of outstanding ancient Indian astronomers and mathematicians
Aryabhatas and Varahamihirs (V-VI centuries AD) tells that already in the V
century Indians knew the basics of trigonometry and algebra, with the extraction
of square and cube roots, had the ability to calculate the number “pi”, knew
about the empirical rules for summing arithmetic series, geometric progressions,
solved indefinite equations of the second degree, etc.
Ancient Indian chemists knew about the heat treatment of metals,
calcination and distillation, the production of acids, paints, perfumes, medicines,
and preparations from mercury. Outstanding ancient Indian physicians (Javaka,
5th-4th centuries BC, Charaka, 1st century) were able to diagnose and cure
various diseases and were famous far beyond the borders of the country. During
the operations, over two hundred different instruments and anesthesia were used.
Although written literature appeared in India already in the second half of
the 1st millennium BC, the flourishing of Sanskrit literature fell on the time of
the Guptas.
It was during this period that the famous poems Mahabharata and
Ramayana, as well as treatises on various branches of knowledge, were written
in their final form in Sanskrit. Collections of fairy tales, stories, fables are
imbued with centuries-old folk wisdom.
Culture of Ancient China.
China is the largest of the isolated civilizations and the most isolated of
the greatcivilizations. Statehood in China emerged in the II millennium BC.
The inhabitants of Ancient China believed that life is a creation of divine,
supernatural power. Everything in the world is in motion and constantly changes
as a result of the collision of two opposite cosmic forces - Light and Darkness.
In this ancient period, the Chinese, like other peoples, were characterized
by the cult of nature: they worshiped the spirits of the earth, rivers, sun, moon,
rain, wind. One of the most important was the cult of sacred mountains.
The cult of ancestors was also very strong. It was based on the idea that a
person’s soul continues to live after death, and moreover, it can interfere in the
affairs of the living.
On this basis, the deification of the royal power appeared. The ruler was
recognized as the son of Heaven, i.e. the representative of God on earth.
In the middle of the 1st millennium BC in China, the main ideological
trends were born, which were subsequently transformed into philosophical and
religious systems. These were Taoism, Monism and Confucianism.
Taoism arose at the turn of the 6th - 5th centuries. BC e. Its founder was
the sage Lao Tzu, the author of the famous “Book of Tao and Te”. The main
word in this work is Tao, which literally means path. This word also denoted
other concepts: rule, order, meaning, law, etc. Tao is eternally one, unchanging,
enduring.
Lao Tzu argued that a person, being unable to change the natural order of
things should leave things to develop by themselves. Primordial naturalness
does not require any effort from a person and completely rests on his own

43
natural rhythms. All phenomena, both man and thing, are equal in the circles of
being. Therefore, a person’s lot is passive contemplation of the natural course of
events and the desire to comprehend Tao. So, the adherents of Taoism preached
the rejection of active action and put forward the theory of non-action (wu-
wei). This theory is the basic tenet of Taoism.

Picture 11. Confucius, statue in Shanghai, China.

Confucianism arose at the turn of the 6th-5th centuries BC. Its founder
was the preacher Kun-tzu, known in European transcription as Confucius
(Teacher Kun) (p.11). Confucius believed that the main virtues of man are
loyalty, obedience and respect for parents and elders. Therefore, the first and
most important commandment given by Confucius: honoring parents and
respecting elders is the essence of life.
Confucius taught that each person has a strictly defined place in the world
and society; he argued that the social structure, like the structure of the whole
world, is eternal and unchanging. Each person must fulfill the role assigned to
him in society: the son should honor his father, the subordinate - the boss. Such
human behavior should be based on morality and ethics: Confucius believed that
man is by nature more inclined to good than to evil, hoped for the effectiveness
of moral preaching and opposed those who wanted to build society on violence
and fear of punishment.
The state and the Confucian religion in China are becoming a single
political-administrative-ideological system, the essence of which is the desire to
consolidate the old social norms and achieve the unquestioning obedience of the
people.
Moism - the name of this school comes from the name of its founder Mo
Di, or teacher Moor “Mozi”. The Moists opposed the most important provisions
of Confucianism.
Central elements of Mohist thought include advocacy of a unified ethical
and political order grounded in a consequentialist ethic emphasizing impartial
44
concern for all; active opposition to military aggression and injury to others;
devotion to utility and frugality and condemnation of waste and luxury; support
for a centralized, authoritarian state led by a virtuous, benevolent sovereign and
managed by a hierarchical, merit-based bureaucracy; and respect for and
acguiescence to Heaven (Tian, literally the sky) and the ghosts worshiped in
traditional folk religion.
Mo Di proposed his program of recreation society on the traditional
Chinese principle of “universal love and mutual benefit.” He suggested to
nominate people to leadership positions, regardless of their origin, and to form a
management apparatus based on the personal qualities of a person.
Norms of daily life
Criteria for the behavior of all actions were developed on the basis of
Confucianism. So, a man was required to strictly fulfill his duties, to serve, to
obey the head of the clan. A woman had to be always humble and obedient to
her husband, father-in-law and mother-in-law, her main duty was to serve her
husband, diligence in work and prolonging the family.
Man as a person did not represent an independent value, ancient Chinese
society lived according to the principle: “the personal is nothing, everything is
state and collective.” The focus in China has always been society and the state,
not the personal. Hence - the lack of genuine interest in the problems of the
universe, in individual psychology, in private economy and constant increased
attention to social problems, the nature of state power, state regulation of
public life.
The state was revered as the highest value.
Development of science, literature and arts.
However, knowledge and learning were treated with great respect.
Knowledge usually meant postulates from the field of humanitarian disciplines.
From the V century BC the Chinese knew the properties of a right-angled
triangle; in the 1st century, the famous treatise “Mathematics in Nine
Chapters” was created, summarizing the mathematical knowledge accumulated
in China over several centuries. For the first time in the history of mankind,
Chinese scientists introduced the concept of negative numbers, they knew
operations with ordinary fractions, which they knew how to reduce, solved
problems by percentages, knew the arithmetic progression, and made up systems
of equations.
In ancient ChinaAstronomy developed in the II millennium BC Chinese
astronomy was equatorial, centered as it was on close observation ofstars, and
was based on different principles from those prevailing in traditional
Westernastronomy, where heliacal risings and settings of zodiac
constellations formed the basic ecliptic framework.One of the main functions
was for the purpose of timekeeping. The Chinese used a lunisolar calendar, but,
because the cycles of the Sun and the Moon are different, intercalation had to be
done.The Chinese calendar was considered to be a symbol of a dynasty. As

45
dynasties would rise and fall, astronomers and astrologers of each period would
often prepare a new calendar to be made, with observations for that purpose.
Already in the the ancient inhabitants of China divided the year into 12
months, and the month into four weeks. From the V century BC they made
regular astronomical observations and gave names to 28 constellations, which
by that time they had distinguished from many stars. In the IV century BC they
compiled the first stellar catalog of 800 stars in world history.
Chinese doctors have made a significant contribution to world medicine.
One of the greatest achievements of Chinese healers was the invention of drugs
in the 1st millennium BC they are widely used in medical practice. The earliest
book on medicines was compiled in the 2nd century BC. Its authorship is
attributed to Emperor Shen Nunzu, who is considered the founder of Chinese
pharmacology. In the 1st century BC the Chinese compiled a catalog of medical
books, which collected recipes for the treatment of many diseases. It contained
information about 36 special treatises on medicine. The achievements of
Chinese doctors in the study of diseases and their diagnosis were great. Chinese
doctors were also leaders in the use of acupuncture and moxibustion. They
actively used these methods in the 1st millennium BC.
Papermaking, printing, gownpowder and the compass are the four great
inventions of ancient China which is the significant contributions of the Chinese
nation to world civilization.The ancient Chinese invented a magnetic device that
was the predecessor of the compass, invented a water mill, a water-lifting
pump-machine that lifted water to the surface of the earth. In addition, it was the
Chinese who designed the world’s first seismograph.
The ancient Chinese invented a magnetic device - the predecessor of the
compass, a water mill.

5.4. HISTORY OF ANCIENT GREEK CULTURE

European civilization has its roots in antiquity.Especially in the culture of

ancient Greece. Ancient culture is the greatest creation of humanity. It revealed
its secrets to the new Europe through myths and legends about Troy, Mycenae,
Tiryns. These were the achievements of relatively small, but very talented
peoples.
The ancient Greeks were well aware of the achievements of the culture of
the Easten people. They assimilated the experience of Egypt and Babylonia, but
determined their own path both in the development of new socio-political
relations, philosophical searches, and in an artistic and aesthetic approach to the
world. Greece for many centuries did not represent united geographic space.
It existed in the form of isolated city-policies. The difference between them
was significant: in linguisticdialects, their own calendars and coins, revered gods
and respected heroes. Sometimes not onlywould they compete with others, but
would also fight with each other. Sparta and Athens are the two poles of this
confrontation.

46
 The flourishing of the culture of Ancient Hellas turned out to be so
amazing that it still evokes deep admiration and gives reason to talk about the
real mystery of the “Greek miracle”.The essence of this miracle is that only the
Greek people managed to reach unprecedented heights in almost all areas of
culture. No other people - neither before nor after - could do anything like this.
In the evolution of the culture of Ancient Greece are usually distinguished
five periods:
Aegean culture (2800-1100 BC).
Homeric period (XI-IX centuries BC).
The period of archaic culture (VIII-VI centuries BC).
Classical period (V-IV centuries BC).
The era of Hellenism (323-146 BC).
The Aegean culture is often referred to as the Cretan-Mycenaean,
considering the island of Crete and Mycenae as its main centers. The first four
states with centers-palaces in Knossos, Festa, Mallia and Kato Zakro were
formed in the south of the Balkan Peninsula of the Peloponnese and the island of
Creteat the end of the 3rd millennium BC. Considering the special role of
palaces, the emerging civilization is sometimes called “palace”.
The economic basis of the Cretan civilization was agriculture, which
primarily grew bread, grapes and olives. Cattle breeding also played an
important role. Crafts had reached a high level, especially the smelting of
bronze. Ceramic production also developed successfully.
The most famous monument of Cretan culture is the Palace of Knossos,
which well-known as“Labyrinth”, from which only the first floor had survived.
The palace was a grandiose multi-storey building that included 300 rooms on a
common platform that occupied more than 1 hectare. It was equipped with an
excellent water supply and sewerage system and had terracotta baths. The palace
was at the same time a religious, administrative and commercial center, it
housed craft workshops. The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur is associated
with it.
Period XI-IX centuries BC was called the Homeric period, because the
main sources of information about it are the famous poems “Iliad” and
“Odyssey” whose author is presumed to be “Homer”, thus the name Homeric
period.
The “Theogony” of Hesiod was created at the turn of the VIII-VII
centuries BC, it was systematizing the mythological narratives of the ancient
Greek, giving a cosmogonic picture of the origin of the world and defining an
important moment in the development of Greek artistic culture: god, hero,
mythological creatures get human appearance.
The Archaic period (VIII-VI centuries BC) became a time of rapid and
intensive development of Ancient Greece, during which all the necessary
conditions and prerequisites were created for the subsequent amazing take-off
and prosperity.All possible forms of government and government emerged as
like monarchy, tyranny, oligarchy, aristocratic and democratic republics.

47
 Economic progress contributes to the expansion of the market and trade,
based on the emerging system of monetary circulation.
In 776 BC the Olympic Games arose. They were held every four years in
the city of Olympia and lasted five days, during which the “sacred peace” was
observed, which ceased all hostilities. The winner of the games was held in high
esteem and had significant social privileges (tax exemption, life pension,
permanent theater seats and holidays). The three-time winner in the games
ordered his statue from the famous sculptor and put it in the sacred grove that
surrounded the main shrine of the city of Olympia and all Greece - the temple of
Zeus.
Philosophy and science arose in the archaic era. Their founder was
Thales. One of the founders of ancient philosophy and science was also the
semi-legendary Pythagoras. He mademathematics asa completely independent
phenomenon of science.
Artistic culture also reached a high level in the archaic era. At this time,
architecture was formed and based on two types of order - Doric and Ionic.
The leading type of construction was the sacred temple as the abode of God. The
most famous and revered was the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. There was also a
monumental sculpture - first wooden and then stone.
The classical period (V-IV centuries BC) was the time of the highest rise
and flourishing of ancient Greek civilization and culture. It was the period which
called the “Greek miracle”.
During the classical period, Greece experienced rapid economic
development, which is further intensified after the victory over the Persians. The
economy was still based on agriculture. Along with it, crafts are intensively
developing - especially metal smelting. Commodity production, in particular
grapes and olives, is growing rapidly, and as a consequence there is a rapid
expansion of exchange and trade.
Philosophy reached the highest level. It was during this period that such
great minds of antiquity as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle lived and worked.
Socrates was the first to focus on the problems of human life, on the problems
of good, evil and justice, the man’s cognition of himself. He was also the
founder of one of the main directions of all subsequent philosophy -
rationalism. But the real creator of it was Plato. For Plato, rationalism fully
becomes an abstract theoretical way of thinking and extends to all spheres of
being. Aristotle continued the line of Plato and at the same time became the
founder of the second main direction of philosophy - empiricism. According to
it the real source of knowledge is sensory experience, directly observable data.
Along with philosophy, other sciences also started developing
successfully - mathematics, medicine, history.
Architecture and urban planning had an unprecedented rise.

48
 The Acropolis of Athens
has become a true triumph
of ancient Greek
architecture, one of the
greatest masterpieces of
world art (p.12). Having
been built by architects
Iktin and Kalikrat, it was
located on a high hill and
could be seen far from the
sea. Among the famous
architectural monuments,
there were also two
structures classified as the
Picture 12. The Acropolis.
seven wonders of the world. The first was the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus,
built on the site of a beautiful predecessor temple. The second monument was
the tomb of Mavsol, the ruler of Kariy, which later received the name
“Mausoleum in Gali-Karnas”.
In the era of classics, Greek sculpture reaches its highest perfection.
Antique sculpture is represented by a whole galaxy of brilliant masters. The
greatest of these is Phidias. His statue of Zeus, which was 14 m high and
adorned the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, is also one of the seven wonders of the
world. He also created a statue of Athena Parthenos, 12 m high, which was
located in the center of the Athenian Acropolis.
Among other sculptors, the most famous are Pythagoras of Regia, who
created the statue of “The Boy Taking Out a Thorn”; Miron - the author of the
sculptures “Discobolus” and “Athena and Marsyas”; Polycletus is a master of
bronze sculpture, who created “Dorifor” (Lancer) and “Wounded Amazon”.
The late classics are represented by the sculptors Praxitel, Skopas,
Lysippos.
Hellenism (323-146 BC) was the final stage of ancient Greek culture.
During this period, the high level of general Hellenic culture was preserved.
Science and art developed most successfully in the era of Hellenism. In
science, the leading positions were occupied by mathematics, where such great
minds as Euclid and Archimedeshad worked. Through their efforts,
mathematics not only progressed in theoretical terms, but also found wide
applied and practical application in mechanics, optics, statics, hydrostatics, and
construction. Archimedes also made many technical inventions. Astronomy,
medicine, and geography were also in significant progress.

49
 6. CULTURE OF MEDIEVAL WESTERN EUROPE AND MUSLIM
EAST
6.1. CULTURE OF MEDIEVAL WESTERN EUROPE

The Middle Ages is a long period in the history of Western Europe between
Antiquity and Modern Times. This period covers more than a millennium from
the 5th to the 15th centuries. The Middle Ages are usually divided into three
periods. They are as follows:
- Early Middle Ages, from the beginning of the era to 900 or 1000 years
(up to X-XI centuries);
- High (Classic) Middle Ages. From X-XI centuries to about XIV century;
- Late Middle Ages, XIV and XV centuries.
The early Middle Ages was a time when very important processes took
place in Europe. First of all, these were the invasions of the so-called barbarians
(from the Latin barba - beard). These invasions ended with the fall of Rome.
Second, Christianity has become the state religion. It supplanted pagan beliefs
throughout the territory of the Roman Empire, and this process did not stop after
the fall of the empire. Third, new state formations began to appear.
The most important feature of medieval culture was Christianity. After
the destruction of the Roman Empire, only the church for many centuries
remained the only social institution common to all countries, tribes and states of
Europe. The church was the dominant political institution, the church strongly
influenced the consciousness of the population. In a difficult and meager life,
Christianity offered people a harmonious system of knowledge about the world,
about its structure, about the forces and laws operating in it. In addition, it had
an emotional appeal with warmth, universally significant preaching of love and
understandable for everyone the norms of social community.
The medieval European was certainly a deeply religious person. People’s
minds were absolutely sure of the possibility of miracles and took the Bible
literally.
Of course, the medieval European, including the upper strata of society,
up to kings and emperors, was illiterate. Literacy and education levels were low.
The Christian Church in the Middle Ages was completely indifferent to
the Greek and generally to science and philosophy. The main problem that the
church fathers tried to solve was to master the knowledge of the “pagans”, while
defining the boundaries between reason and faith. Christianity was forced to
compete with the intelligence of the pagans, such as the Hellenists, the Romans,
with Jewish learning.
The universities that appeared in Europe since the 12th century have
become centers of scientific research. The English Franciscans Robert
Grossetest and Roger Bacon introduced mathematical and experimental methods
into the realm of science, and facilitated discussions about vision and the nature
of light and color.

50
 Alchemy occupied an important place in the scientific culture of the
European Middle Ages. Alchemy was devoted primarily to the search for a
substance that could convert common metals into gold or silver and serve as a
means of indefinitely prolonging human life.

6.2. ARTISTIC STYLES OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE

Roman style
The first independent, specifically European artistic style of medieval
Europe was Romanesque, which characterized the art and architecture of
Western Europe from about 1000 until the advent of the Gothic, in most regions
until about the second half and the end of the 12th century. The most famous
and best-developed examples of this type are the Cathedral of San Vitalo by
the Byzantine emperor Justinian in Ravenna (526-548) and the octagonal
chapel of the palace, built between 792 and 805 by Charlemagne in Ai-la-
Capella (in the past, the time of Aachen, Germany), directly inspired by the
Cathedral of San Vitalo. One of the creations of the Carolingian architects was
the wing, a multi-storey entrance facade flanked by bell towers, which began to
be attached to Christian basilicas. Monasteries, a characteristic religious and
social phenomenon of that era, required huge buildings that combined both
monks’ dwellings and chapels, premises for prayers and services, libraries,
workshops.
A significant role in the emergence and spread of Romanesque art was
played by monastic orders - the Benedictine order, founded in the 6th century
in Monte Cassino, and the Cistercian order, which arose 100 years later.
Monasteries were a repository of not only spiritual knowledge, but of all science
in general, including architectural and construction knowledge. Monasteries,
together with Romanesque churches, monastic or cathedral, parish or fortress
churches, were an important part
of social life. They were a
powerful political and economic
organization that influenced the
development of all areas of
culture. An example is the
Cluny Monastery.
The Romanesque style is
characterized by massiveness,
severity and the absence of frills,
as well as the severity of the
external appearance.
Picture 13. The Church of San Vitale.
Romanesque architecture is famous for its heavy castles and temples,
rather reminiscent of an impregnable fortress in the spirit of the Middle Ages.

51
The Romanesque style is dominated by powerful walls, massive semicircular
doors, thick columns, cruciform or barrel vaults, semicircular or round windows.
Gothicstyle
Over time, the Romanesque style was replaced by a new style - the
Gothic. During the second half of the Middle Ages, religious and secular
buildings, sculpture, colored glass, illustrated manuscripts and other works of
visual art began to be performed in this style in Europe.
The Gothic style (p.14) is
characterized by pointed arches,
narrow and high towers and columns,
a richly decorated facade with carved
details (vimpergs, tympans,
archivolts) and multicolored stained
glass lancet windows. All style
elements emphasize vertical. Gothic
buildings have more light and air.
Large mosaic windows, representing
scenes from Holy Scripture, from the
lives of saints, and so on, are better
combined with the majestic
architecture.
The thick walls of Romanesque
architecture were replaced by thinner
ones, which included extensive
window openings, and the interiors
received illumination unparalleled
Picture 14. Gothic cathedral in until then. Therefore, a real revolution took
Coutance, France place in the construction business.
The first of the large cathedrals was Notre
Dame Cathedral (p.15) (started in 1163). In
1194, the Chartres Cathedral was laid, which
is considered the beginning of the High
Gothic period. Reims Cathedral(p.16) (fr.
Notre-Dame de Reims) - Gothic cathedral in
the French city of Reims.

Picture 15. Notre Dame Cathedral.

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 6.3. ARAB-MUSLIM CULTURE IN
MEDIEVAL HISTORY

At a certain stage in medieval history,

the Arab-Muslim culture took shape and
developed. The Islamic religion and the
Arabic language have had a great influence
on shaping this. Every Muslim was, first of
all, a member of the general Muslim
community, and only then - a resident of
this or that city, province, a native of an
ethnic group. The Arabic language was
perceived as an element of the general
Picture 16. Reims Cathedral.
culture. Every educated Muslim -
Iranian or Turk, resident of distant
Andalusia or India - strove to master the language of the Holy Quran and
extensive theological literature.
The translations of ancient, Iranian and Indian texts into Arabic have
especially fruitfully influenced the development of the Arab secular scientific
and philosophical thought - it was one of the most productive attempts in the
history of mankind to assimilate someone else’s scientific and philosophical
heritage.
These were educated Syrians, Greeks and Persians, who introduced the
Arabs to the works of Archimedes and Ptolemy, Hippocrates and Galen,
Plato and Aristotle in mathematics, astronomy, medicine and philosophy, with
Indian medical tracts and Persian historical and didactic works. The translation
of scientific and philosophical works in the Caliphate was carried out on a much
larger scale than in medieval Europe, was intended for a much wider audience of
the Muslim “intelligentsia” and was of a secular nature.They primarily translated
Greek and Indian writings, which contained practically useful knowledge. They
were interested in works on astrology and astronomy, alchemy and medicine.
Translation art
The art of translation was viewed as a specialty requiring special skills
and good knowledge of languages, and, as in any medieval craft, the subtleties
of this art were passed on from generation to generation. Especially famous as
translators from Greek were the Syrian Hunayn ibn Ishaq (810 -873) and his
son Ishaq ibn Hunayn (died in 911), the Sabiy from Harran Sabit ibn Kurra
(836-901), the Syrian from Balabakk Costa ibn Luka (820 - 912), and from
Persian - al-Hasan ibn Sahl (died in 850) and Abdallah ibn al-Mukaffa (721 -
757). Members of the al-Munajim family were especially famous for their
translation activities.
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 Sciences
The main centers for the study of sciences were the cities of Kufa and
Basra, in Baghdad. The centers for the study of foreign sciences were the
ancient centers of the Greco-Hellenistic culture - Alexandria and Antioch,
Jundishapur, ar-Ruha (Edessa), where secular sciences flourished (medicine,
mathematics, astronomy). As connoisseurs of exact sciences, medicine and
philosophy, the Greeks and Syrians living in these cities performed an important
cultural mission, many of them after the Arab conquest became court doctors,
astrologers and held various high positions in the state. In Jundishapur, the
Greco-Syrian medical school arose during the period of Sassanian rule.
During the heyday of Arab culture (VIII-XII centuries), people of science
were highly respected in society. The scholar was held in high esteem, even if he
came from the poorest strata of society.
The contribution of the Arabs to mathematics was significant. Abu-l-
Wafa deduced the theorem of sines of spherical trigonometry, calculated a
table of sines with an interval of 15 °, introduced the segments corresponding to
the secant and cosecant in the 10th century. Poet, scientist Omar Khayyam
wrote “Algebra”. He also successfully dealt with the problem of irrational and
real numbers.
Medicine has achieved great success - it has developed more successfully
than in Europe or the Far East.Arab medieval medicine achieved remarkable
successes to which the Syrian-Christian family Bohtisho (IX century) made a
significant contribution, as well as the Iranian native of Rhea Abu Bakr ar-Razi
(Razes; died in 925) and the famous scientist and philosopher from Bukhara Ibn
Sina( Avicenna; 980 - 1037). In the
Syrian-Nestorian school of Jundishapur, medicine was studied mainly
according to Hippocrates and Galen, and about 800 the doctor Jabrail from the
Bohtisho family, a teacher of the Jundishapur school opened the first hospital in
Baghdad (“bimaristan”).
The work of the remarkable physician and philosopher Abu Bakr al-
Razi“The Book of Medicine” (“Kitab at-Tibb al-Mansuri) as well as his
other medical works contains a description of all diseases known in his time,
based on both the works of the Greek, Syrian and Indian scientists, and on
personal observations of the author.
The main work of Ibn Sina on medicine the famous “Medical Canon”
(“al-Qanun fi-t-tibb”) for many centuries was one of the main medical and
pharmacological manuals in the countries of the East,it gained even more
popularity in the Muslim Middle Ages and in medieval Europe.
Literature
Even earlier in history, the Arabs had rich folklore traditions, they
appreciated the spoken word, a beautiful phrase, a good comparison. Each tribe
of Arabia had its own poet, praising their fellow tribesmen and condemning
their enemies. In the VIII-X centuries.many works of pre-Islamic Arabic oral
poetry have been recorded. So, in the IX century two collections of “Hamas”

54
(“Songs of Valor”) were compiled which included poems of more than 500 Old
Arab poets. In the X century writer, scientist, musician Abu-l-Faraj Al-
Isfahani compiled a multivolume anthology “Kitab al-Agani” (“Book of
Songs”), which includes works and biographies of poets, as well as information
about composers and performers.
The world-famous collection of Arab folk tales “A Thousand and One
Nights” was formed in the X-XV centuries. They were based on the revised
plots of Persian, Indian, Greek legends, the action of which was transferred to
the Arab court and urban environment, as well as the Arab fairy tales proper.
These are fairy tales about Ali Baba, Aladdin, Sinbad and others.
The Persian poet and scholar Omar Khayyam (1048-1122) was widely
known for his free-thinking philosophical poetry. He was Persian
mathematician, astronomer, and poet renowned in his own country and time for
his scientific achievements.
Architecture
Medieval Arab architecture developed on the basis of Arab processing of
Greek, Roman and Iranian artistic traditions. The most famous architectural
monuments of that time are the Amra mosque in Fustat and the cathedral
mosque in Kufa created in the 7th century. At the same time, the famous
“Dome of the Rock” temple decorated with mosaics and multi-colored marble.
From the VII-VIII centuries the mosques had a rectangular courtyard surrounded
by galleries, a multi-column prayer hall.

Picture 17.Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

Since the X century buildings are beginning to be decorated with graceful
floral and geometric ornamentsincluding stylized inscriptions - Arabic script.
Such an ornament, the Europeans called it arabesque, was built on the principle
of endless development and rhythmic repetition of the pattern.
55
 7. RENAISSANCE CULTURE
7.1. THE MOST IMPORTANT PRINCIPLES OF THE
RENAISSANCE
The Renaissance culture took place in Western Europe in the 14th to 16th
centuries. The word “Renaissance” means the rejection of medieval culture and
the return, “revival” of the culture and art of Greco-Roman antiquity. It
originally started in Italy.
The Italian phenomenon of the emergence of a new culture was not an
accident, but was conditioned by the peculiarities of Italian society and politics.
The country was not united and centralized, it was fragmented into separate city-
states. This promoted to the earlier (X-XI centuries) and faster growth of cities,
and along with them - the growth and strengthening of the role of trade and craft
strata, which, in the fight against the feudal lords already in the XIII century.
political power in Florence, Bologna, Siena and other cities was added to their
economic dominance.
As a result, favorable conditions were created for the emergence and
development of elements of capitalism. It was the emerging capitalism, in need
of a free labor force, that accelerated the destruction of the system of feudal
relations. It is in Italy that much of Roman antiquity has been preserved, and
above all the language of antiquity - Latin, as well as cities, money, etc.
Many other events and phenomena contributed to the establishment and
development of the Renaissance culture. These include, first of all, the great
geographical discoveries - the discovery of America (1492), the discovery of
the sea route from Europe to India (15th century), etc., after which it was no
longer possible to look at the world with the same eyes. The invention of book
printing (mid-15th century), which laid the foundation for a new, written culture,
was of great importance.
The most important principle of the Renaissance is the principle of
humanism. This principle was taken from Cicero (1st century BC), who called
humanism the highest cultural and moral development of human abilities.
Unlike medieval morality, which promised man a better life in the other
world, humanism declared man’s earthly life to be the highest value, magnified
man’s earthly destiny, confirmed his right to happiness in the real world of this
world.
The next principle is anthropocentrism, which means that man is the
center and the highest goal of the universe. If for the religious Middle Ages a
person is a “trembling creature”, then the humanists of the Renaissance do not
know the limit in raising a person, bringing him closer and equalizing him with
God. Nikolai Kuzansky called man a “second god”. If the first God rules in
heaven, then the second on earth.
Humanists rejected the religious concept of man as a “servant of God”
deprived of freedom of will, whose norms of behavior are uncomplaining
humility, obedience to fate, unconditional submission to Divine will and grace.

56
They revived the ancient ideal of a free, creative, active, comprehensively and
harmoniously developed personality. Fall and redemption are not the raison
d’être of human existence. Active, working life is an unconditional value. Any
labor - be it agriculture, craft or trade, any increase in wealth - receives the
highest praise from the humanists.

7.2. The main stages and genres of literature, architecture, sculpture,

painting of Renaissance

The literature of the early Renaissance is characterized by a short story,

especially the comic - Jovanni Boccaccio, glorifyingan enterprising and free
from prejudice personality. The High Renaissance was marked by the dawn of a
heroic poem: in Italy - L. Pulci, F. Bernie, in Spain - L. Camões, whose
adventurous-knightly plot poetizes the idea of the Renaissance about a person
born for great deeds. The original epic of the High Renaissance, a
comprehensive picture of society and its heroic ideals inthe folktale and
philosophical-comic form was the work of Rabelais“Gargantua and
Pantagruel”. The highest rise of the late Renaissance - the dramas of
Shakespeare and the novels of Cervantes.
Architecture, sculpture, painting.
Painting comes to the fore. The close connection between science and art is a
characteristic feature of the Renaissance culture. Engaged in artistic creation,
artists went through perspective - into the field of optics and physics, through
the problems of proportions - into anatomy and
mathematics, etc. This led the Renaissance masters
even to the identification of science and art.
Moreover, some of them, such as Leonardo da
Vinci, considered art the most important science,
since art provides the most accurate and flawless
depiction of life. Painting Vitruvian Man(p.18) is a
work that was created by Leonardo da Vinci in
1490-th as an illustration for a book. The book itself
was dedicated to the works of Vitruvius. The figure
clearly shows the image of a man’s figure in the
form of two positions, which in different locations
are applied one on top of the other. The drawing is
most often used as an implicit symbol with the
internal symmetry of the human body and the entire
Universe.
Picture 18.Leonardo da Vinci. Vitruvian Man.
Renaissance artists develop principles, discover the laws of direct linear
perspective. The founders of the theory of perspective were Brunelleschi,
Masaccio, Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci. With a perspective construction, the
whole picture turns into a window through which we look into the world.

57
 The space develops in depth smoothly, imperceptibly. It flows from one
plane to another. The discovery of perspective was important: it helped to
expand the range of depicted phenomena, to include space, landscape,
architecture in painting.
The union of a scientist and an artist in one person, in one creative person
was possible in the Renaissance and will become impossible later. Renaissance
Masters are often referred to as “titans” for their versatility.
Raphael Santi (1483-1520) - painter, architect andmonumentalist, master
of portrait and master of decor (p.19, 20).
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was a painter, sculptor, architect, writer,
musician, art theorist, military engineer, inventor, mathematician, anatomist,
botanist. He explored almost all spheres of natural science, foresaw many things
that were not yet thought of at that time (p.21).
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) - sculptor, architect, artist, poet.
Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) - founder and largest representative of the
German Renaissance, artist, art theorist.

Picture 19. Raffaello

Santi. 1483-1520
Holy Family (Madonna with
Beardless Joseph)

58
 Picture 20. Raphael
Santi .Sistine Madonna .

Picture 21. Leonardo da Vinci.Mona Lisa or La Gioconda.

7.3. REFORMATION AND PROTESTANTISM.

The philosophical foundation of the Renaissance was pantheism.

Pantheism is the view that the world is either identical to God, or an expression
of God’s nature. It comes from ‘pan’ meaning all, and ‘theism,’ which means
belief in God. So according to pantheism, “God is everything and everything is
God”. Pantheism endows nature with divine attributes, such as eternity, infinity.
Giving a general description of the Italian and Northern Renaissance, it
should be noted that the Italian Renaissance is characterized by a striving for the
restoration of ancient culture, a striving for emancipation, liberation from church
59
dogmas, for secular education. Northern humanism led to the Reformation and
Protestantism.
The Renaissance era caused profound changes in all areas of culture and,
above all, in religion. The Catholic clergy and the papacy had great problems as
they became an instrument of enrichment. The Church was drowning in luxury
and wealth, it lost measure in desire for power, enrichment and expansion of
land holdings.
The resulting intrigues and political manipulations, combined with the
church’s increasing power and wealth, contributed to the bankrupting of the
church as a spiritual force. Abuses such as the sale of indulgences (or spiritual
privileges) by the clergy and other charges of corruption undermined the
church’s spiritual authority.
The main representatives of the Reformation are the German priest
Martin Luther (1483-1546) and the French priest John Calvin (1509-1564), as
well as Thomas Munzer (1490-1525), who led the direction of the Reformation
in Germany (1524-1526). The exact date of the beginning of the Reformation is
considered to be October 31, 1517, when Luther nailed on the door of his
church in Wittenberg a leaflet containing 95 theses against the trade in
indulgences.
The Reformation affected not only the indulgence trade, but more
fundamental things in Catholicism. Representatives of the Reformation came
out with the slogan of a return to the very origins of Christianity. To this end,
they compared the Catholic Sacred Tradition with the Holy Scriptures, the
Bible, concluding that the Holy Tradition is a gross distortion of the original
Christianity. The Church not only does not have the right to sell indulgences, but
in general to forgive a person’s sins.
The Bible does not require any atoning offerings from the sinner. To save
him, one needs not donations for the benefit of the Church or monasteries, not
“good deeds”, but sincere repentance for what he has done and deep faith.
Forgiveness of personal sin, personal guilt is achieved through direct, personal
appeal to God. No intermediaries are required.
The Reformation has many aspects in common with the humanism of the
Renaissance. It preserves the Christian thesis about the original sinfulness of
man. At the same time, it endows person with the Divine principle, Divine gift
and grace, which open before him a real path to salvation.
Hence, it emphasizes the importance of the efforts of the person himself,
his personal faith, personal choice, personal responsibility. It declares salvation
itself a personal matter. So is humanism. The Reformation contributed to the
strengthening of the role of the secular principle, worldly life. Salvation in
Protestantism is possible due to inner faith, good deals and hard honest
work.

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 8. EUROPEAN CULTURE IN XVII-XIX CENTURES
8.1. XVII-XVIII CENTURY EUROPEAN CULTURE

This century was called: “Age of Reason”, “Age of Enlightenment”.

The secularization of public consciousness, the spread of the ideals of
Protestantism, the rapid development of natural science, the growing interest in
scientific and philosophical knowledge are the most significant signs of the time.
The Age of Enlightenment included the belief in the ability to change a person
for the better, “rationally” transforming political and social foundations.
European art of this century combined two different origins: Classicism
and romanticism. Classicism meant the subordination of man to the social
system, the romanticism sought to maximize the individual, personal principle.
Classicism (French classicisme from Latin classicus “exemplary”) is an
artistic style and aesthetic trend in European culture of the XVII-XIX centuries.
Classicism is based on the ideas of antiquity. According to classicism art
should be built on the basis of strict canons, thereby revealing the harmony and
consistency of the universe itself.
Classicism established a strict hierarchy of genres, which are divided into
high (ode, tragedy, epic) and low (comedy, satire, fable). Each genre has strictly
defined features, the mixing of which is not allowed.
Classicism is characterized by a striving for clarity, certainty, uniqueness,
logical accuracy. Another feature and fundamental task was the imitation of
nature, harmonious and at the same time modern. Beauty was understood as
something born of nature and at the same time surpassing it.

Picture 22.Nicolas Poussin.A Dance to the Music of Time.

Nicolas Poussin, in his paintings, mainly on themes of ancient antiquity
and mythology, gave unsurpassed examples of geometrically accurate
composition and thoughtful correlation of color groups (p.22).

61
 During these eras the baroque style arose. The word “baroque” denotes
an artistic direction opposed to classicism, the historical artistic style of the
17th-18th centuries, a number of historical and regional artistic styles, trends
and schools.
Baroque is characterized by contrast, tension, dynamism of images,
affectation, heightened sensuality, striving for the greatness of images and
splendor of forms, for combining reality and illusion, for the fusion of various
kinds, types and genres of art.
The most characteristic features of the Baroque are striking flowery and
dynamism. Caravaggio and Annibale Carracci, the two great Italian artists are
known to have contributed in the origin of Baroque art tradition after presenting
the most significant work during the 16th and 17th century(p.23).

Picture 23.
Michelangelo
Merisi da
Caravaggio.The
Calling of St
Matthew   

Picture 24. Peter

Paul Rubens. The
four Continents.
(about 1615

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 The Rococo style was a product of the purely secular culture of the
Enlightenment. Rococo architecture and painting focuses mainly on comforting
the one who is able to contemplate and cherish creations (p.24).
The word Rococo is derived from the French word rocaille, which
denoted the shell-covered rock work that was used to decorate artificial grottoes.
The Rococo style was also manifested in the decorative arts. Its
asymmetrical forms and rocaille ornament were quickly adapted to silver and
porcelain, and French furniture of the period also displayed curving forms,
naturalistic shell and floral ornament, and a more elaborate, playful use of gilt-
bronze and porcelain ornamentation.
Representativeness is replaced by intimacy, exquisite decorativeness,
whimsical play of forms. In Italy and France, Rococo painting expressed itself in
the best possible manner.Instead of contrasts and bright colors, a different gamut
of colors appeared in painting, light pastel colors, pink, bluish, lilac. The theme
is dominated by pastorals, bucolics, where the characters are not burdened with
the burdens of life, but indulge in the joys of love.

Picture 25. Francois Boucher.”Breakfast” (1739).

8.2. XIX CENTURY CULTURE

The War of Independence of the North American colonies and the Great
French Revolution of 1789 had a great influence on the culture of the 19th
century. At this time, a new civilization appeared, characterized by the following
features:
- the industrial revolution that began in England influenced Europe and
North America: an industrial society was created;
- a new social structure of society is being formed;
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 - a civil society with its laws and political parties is being formed;
- nations and nation-states are formed within their modern borders;
The natural development of the market was the “industrial revolution”, the
development of transport and communications. In the 19th century, ocean
shipping, rail and road communications appeared.
The 19th century saw a change, which was entirely different from the
previous eras in terms of the direction and style in culture.
One of the largest trends of this kind was the romanticism. Romantisme -
from the Spanish romance, in the 18th century romantique means “strange”,
“fantastic”, “picturesque”. The romantic movement swept all the countries of
Europe, later Russia and America. In each country, romanticism manifested
itself in different ways.
The romanticism means the endorsement of constant unsettled disputes
between the ongoin unattractive reality of the present society and the unrealistic
glorified ideas of the romantics.New genres were created by romantics: the
historical novel, the psychological story, lyric poetry, ballad, lyric poems.
They especially clearly and holistically realized in their work the historicism of
thinking, recognizing the equivalence of the past and the new cultures.
Historical novels were created by Walter Scott (1771-1832): “The Tale of
Old Mortality”, “Rob Roy”, “Ivanhoe” and others, Alfred de Vigny: the novel
“Cing-Mars”, Victor Hugo (1802-1885): “Notre-Dame de Paris”, “Les
Miserables”, “The Man Who Laughs”, “Ninety three” and others.
Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) spoke out against slavery and cruelty
towards Indians during the colonization of North America: “The Last of the
Mohicans”, “The Pioneers”, “The Deerslayer, or the first warpath” and others.
In the visual arts, romanticism was most clearly manifested in the
painting of France.
French romanticism was the summation of the breakdown of the fantasies
related with the French revolution, discontentment with the present and
wantingto have great passions.
The term “romanticism” in relation to painting was first applied to the
work of the French artist Theodore Gericault. He was one of the French youth
who lived with the consciousness awakened by Napoleonic victories and
defeats. His first works were inspired by victories - “The officer of the horse
rangers of the Imperial Guard, going on the attack” (1812), then, as a contrast to it
- “Wounded Cuirassier Leaving the Battlefield” (1814).
One of the most important figures in 19th century art was Eugene
Delacroix. Fame came to him in 1822, when he exhibited The Barque of Dante
in the salon. “Liberty Leading the People” ( Liberty at the Barricades on July
28, 1830)(p.26) was a grandiose reportage on the French Revolution
unprecedented in the history of art. A joyful hymn to Victory.

64
 Picture 26. Eugene Delacroix.Liberty Leading the People.
Romanticism gave power to the development of realism. The crossing of
these directions can be seen in Honore de Balzac, C. Dickens, M.Yu.
Lermontov, L. Maskani, G. Heine and others. Nineteenth-century realism is
commonly called critical realism.
Critical realism is based on the following principles:
- objective demonstrate the essential aspects of life;
- reproductionof typical characters in original circumstances
- vitalauthenticity of the image;
The initiator of critical realism was the French writer Henri Bayle, better
known under the pseudonym Stendhal (1783-1842): “The Red and The
Black.”“The Charterhouse of Parma” (1839).
Western European realism reached the highest point of development in the
work of Honore de Balzac (1799 - 1850). His main creation is the multivolume
epic The Human Comedy. It includes such novels as “Domestic Bliss“,
“Madame Firmiani“, “La Grande Bretèche“, “A Daughter of Eve” and many
others.
Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) created a collective portrait of the
French bourgeoisie in the second half of the 19th century. “Life”, “Bel ami”,
“Boule de suif” - the best novels of Maupassant.
The ideas of the century, the state of social movement and the moral
principles of the era were reflected in the social novels of Charles Dickens
(1812-1870), William Thackeray (1811-1863), John Galsworthy (1867-
1933), the sisters ofCharlotte (1816-1855) and Emily (1818-1848) Bronte
andBernard Shaw (1856 - 1950) - the largest representatives of critical realism
in England.

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 8.3 MODERN NEW DIRECTIONS OF CULTURE

In the 19th century, the direction of impressionism appeared. The name

comes from Manet’s painting “Impression, Sunrise”.(p.27). The Impressionists
sought to capture the flying moment, approaching pure visibility. Just like in
life, a moment never ceases to exist but passes on to another, in the same way
the impressionist tried to convey the continuity of being.

Picture 27. Manet.“Impression, Sunrise”.

How did the artists achieve “immersion in the air of objects”? They
achieved this with new methods of overlaying paint - soft droplets, “commas” of
pure paints, not fused together, using the optical effect of color mixing, which is
created in the eye of the viewer when viewing pictures from a distance. This is
most clearly manifested in Manet’s works Road by Saint-Simeon Farm, Lilac in
the Sun, Path in the Forest and others.
In figural and portrait painting, the luminaries of impressionism were
Auguste Renoir and E. Degas.

9. CULTURE OF THE XX CENTURY.

9.1 MODERNISM, THREE STAGES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF
MODERNISM

Modernism has united many directions (surrealism, futurism,

expressionism, cubism, abstract art, etc.).
There are three stages in the development of modernism:
1) before the First World War - inception;

66
 2) between the world wars - the strengthening of modernist trends in art;
3) after the Second World War - the intensification of the search for a way
out of the artistic crisis.
Modernists wanted to create new forms which wouldn’t include the old
style craftsmanship, instead, the main theme should be centered around the
world’s viewpoint.
Futurism (from future - future) as a style declared human feelings, ideals
of love, happiness, goodness as “weaknesses”, proclaiming “energy”,
“strength”, “speed” as the criteria of beauty. Developed in Italy, Russia and
France.
9.2. Expressionism

Expressionism showed that the world disproportionately made art which

appealed to the aesthetic eye by bringing in it sharpness of tattered lines,
replacing perfectionism with nervous and disaccorded proportions.
This direction developed in Germany, Austria, France.
Expressionism is an artistic style and direction in which the artist tries to
display not just the visible reactions but the personally read and noticed
emotions and reactions of someone’s response to the events happening around.

Picture 28. Red Vineyards at Arles, 1888 by Vincent Van Gogh

Van Gogh’s work is an example of expressionism and abstract art(p.28).
Most of his paintings are autobiographical, they convey the chronicle of his
thoughts, feelings and emotional balance, compositions and shades, special
strokes convey the subtle state of mind of the artist. A characteristic feature of
his works is the use of symbols, allegories.

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 Picture 29. Gauguin, Where do we come from? What are we? Where are
we going?
French artist Paul Gauguin used color to express his emotions (p.29); He
used tones of varying intensities to convey emotion and state.

9.3. ABSTRACT ART. SURREALISM.

Abstract Art is art that has abandoned narrative. Abstract art is

manifested not only in painting and sculpture, but also in all other forms of art,
primarily in music. Abstract painting appeared at the beginning of the 20th
century, when the idea of drawing abstract forms came to painters. Briefly: The
viewer thinks out the meaning himself. All art consists largely of elements that
can be called abstract - elements of form, colour, line, tone, and texture.
Abstract art is art that does not attempt to represent an accurate
depiction of a visual reality but instead use shapes, colours, forms and gestural
marks to achieve its effect.

Picture 30. Wassily Kandinsky. Cossacks.1910.

In the 1910s, painters from Europe and the United States created the first
abstract works of art; these were Wassily Kandinsky (p.30), Arthur Douve,
Frantisek Kupka, Pete Mondrian, Francis Picabia, Robert Delaunay,
Kazimir Malevich.

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 The concepts of the first abstractionists revealed that the artistic creation
reflects the laws of universe in the background while the appearance of
superficial reality outshines on the top.
In December 1915 in Petrograd at the exhibition “0.10” was a painting by
Kazimir Malevich “Black Square” (p.31).

Picture 31. Kazimir Malevich “Black Square”.

Surrealism is a trend in literature and art of the 1920s in the artistic
culture of Western avant-garde. Differs in the use of allusions and paradoxical
combinations of forms.
Prominent surrealist painters are Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Joan
Miró, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst; photographers - Philip Halsman, Man
Ray, Greta Stern; filmmakers - Jean Cocteau, Luis Buñuel.
This direction has developed under the great influence of the theory of
psychoanalysis of Freud. For surrealists the main motto was inflicting the idea
of spiritualism, separating it from the material and the most important value for
them was freedom. They performed their work without any kind of rationalism
but used fantastic forms. Eroticism, irony, magic and subconscious were there
main areas of topics to work with.
Surrealism was a cultural movement, which developed in Europe in the
aftermath of World War I and was largely influenced by Dada. The movement is
best known for its visual artworks and writings and the juxtaposition of distant
realities to activate the unconscious mind through the imagery.

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 Picture 32. André Masson.Automatic Drawing. 1924.
André Masson.Automatic Drawing.1924 (p.32).This picture reflect the
influence of the idea of the unconscious mind. 
Surrealists believed that it was necessary to get away from reality and
allow free associations, “creative madness” to break out.To penetrate the realm
of the subconscious, the artists used hypnosis, alcohol, drugs.That is why the
paintings of surrealist painters contain a combination of the real and the
fictional, altered shapes and sizes of objects. Heavy forms become weightless,
solid objects spread out, and small ones become unrealistically huge.
Chaotic, unrelated elements not only create optical illusions, but also
suggest absurdity, unreality, meaninglessness. However, there is a sense. The
viewer perceives the picture based on his worldview and life experience. Thus,
the artists are trying to achieve their main goal - to guide the viewer to
reflection.
“Surrealism is me!” - said Salvador Dali. For many, he personifies this
trend and is simply equal to it. The surrealist was also a sculptor, writer and
director, but gained fame more as a painter. Salvador Dali (1904 -1989) -
Spanish painter, graphic artist, sculptor, director and writer. One of the most
famous representatives of surrealism (p.32,33).

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 Picture 32. Salvador Dali.The Temptation of Saint Anthony.1946.

Picture 33. Salvador Dalí. The Persistence of Memory.1931.

Hard objects become inexplicably limp in this bleak and infinite

dreamscape, while metal attracts ants like rotting flesh.Those limp watches are
as soft as overripe cheese - indeed, they picture “the camembert of time,” in
Dalí’s phrase. Here time must lose all meaning.In the picture it is evening, the
hot sun still illuminates the cape, cutting into the sea, but most of the work area
is already in the shadow. The evening itself, as a symbol of sadness and
melancholy, determines the general mood of the work.This is the main feature of
surrealism - the artist draws what is in his head, ignoring sensiblesense.

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 CHAPTER III. KAZAKH CULTURE IN HISTORY
10. CULTURE OF NOMADS OF KAZAKHSTAN
10.1. NOMADIC AS A TYPE OF CULTURE.

NOMADISM (nomadism) (English nomadism, German nomadismus) -

forms of farming and subsistence, based on extensive livestock farming
(including deer farming) with seasonal migration of livestock and herds. Cattle-
breeding in nomadic conditions provided nomads with meat and milk, raw
materials for the production of clothing and housing. Nomads were
supplemented by hunting, primitive farming, handicrafts and other industries.
Nomadism arose at the turn of the II-1 millennium BC in the arid zone of
Eurasia and North Africa, was preserved for a long time and even spread to
northern Eurasia, where in the form of deer hunting is known to many peoples
of the taiga and tundra. It is stored in more than 30 countries in Asia and Africa
(Sudan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Turkey,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.), covering about 40 million people.
The nomadic way of life of the steppe peoples played an important role in
the creation of the original culture and society. Nomadism represents the way of
life of people who have trained animals to provide for their livelihoods.
In modern science there are some categories of nomads: hunters and
collectors, such as Australian aborigines, Arctic Indians, African Kungsians,
living in nature; nomads engaged in trade and handicrafts, such as Tuareg or
Gypsy, who regularly move with the purpose of trade or performance of some
handicrafts; nomadic pastoral peoples and tribes from ancient Sarmatians,
Scythians, Gunns to modern Bedouins, Mongol-speaking peoples.
The main source of the Kazakhstan’s economy developed in the first
millennium was semi nomadic and nomadic pastoralism especially in the
Eurasian territories of steppe, semi-desert and desert.
Nomadic (nomadic) type of economy has the following specific
characteristics: it was formed in the conditions of a sharp continental climate,
weakly provided by atmospheric sediments and water resources. Such territories
are called arid zones. The density of the population in nomadic peoples varies
from 0.5 to 2 people on one square km.
The domestication of animals - it is a victory of human mind and will.
Nomadism was more profitable economically than agriculture. The nomad uses
natural protrusions, poor and rugged vegetation, which is not suitable for
humans, but is suitable for animals. Man also receives milk and meat from
animals, uses their skins for clothes.
A round year a nomad has to look for fodder for his cattle in the wild and
barren steppe. In accordance with the annual cycle, it is necessary to move
through the steppe, overcoming short distances. He migrates not only with his
herd, but with the whole family, with all his property. Nomads could not survive
at the table in a harsh natural environment, if they did not develop intuition, self-
control, physical and moral endurance.

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 Scholars highlight the main types of nomadism: northern Eurasian type;
Middle East; East African; the high-altitude Inner Asian and especially the
Eurasian steppe type, which in geographical relation occupied the territory of
the steppes, the semi-deserts and the deserts of the temperate zone, stretched
from the Danube to the northern China.

10.2. MYTHS AND RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF THE SAKS,

SARMATIANS, SCYTHIANS. TRADITIONS AND CUSTOMS.

In the first millennium BC, Saks lived on the territory of Kazakhstan.

There were nomadic tribes, the ancient Persians called them Saks, the Chinese
called them Se, and the Greeks called them Scythians. In the 5-3 centuries BC,
the Saks created their first state on the territory of Kazakhstan, the center of
which was on the territory of Zhetysu - territory of Kazakhstan.
The ancient Persian texts also show that the tribes of the Early Iron Period,
who roamed east of the Volga, were called by the name of Saks. Saks were
Turkic-speaking tribes.
Persian written sources indicate three Saks tribes:
1) saks-tigrahauda - saks who wore pointed hats;
2) saks-haomavarga - saks who made the drink haoma;
3) saks-paradaraya - saks who lived overseas.
Saks-tigrahauda lived in the Tashkent region, on the territory of North and
South Kazakhstan, Zhetysu - Semirechye. The fact that the Saks wore pointed
hats can be seen from the image of their leader Skunkh, carved into the rock,
found in the Behistun area in Iran.
The Saks-paradaraya included the tribes of the Saks who inhabited the
southern coast of the Aral Sea, more precisely, in the south of Kazakhstan. In
written sources, they are called Argippaeans, Issedons.
The Saks leaders resolved issues of war that lead to peace, entered into
alliances, sent ambassadors, led the troops and hence the power was inherited.
The role of the people’s assembly was great. It was the time of the
collapse of the primitive system and the formation of military democracy. A
leader was elected at a people’s assembly. In saks, women holded an
honourable position, as in people’s assembly women could participate with men
also. TOMIRIS, a queen of 6th century was also known.
Saks had their own unique culture, writing, mythological legends.
Outstanding jewelry craftsmanship of the Saks entered the world treasury under
the code name “the art of animal style”.
They raised horses, sheep, camels, cattle, ate animal meat, and used their
skins and wool for sewing clothes and other needs. Horses were of particular
importance in the life of the Saks.
Camels in those days were of major significance, they were bred on
Western and Southern parts of Kazakhstan. Saks used to ate their cape, drink

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their milk (shubat), uses wool and skin for economic purposes.They were used
not only for food and wool but also as means of transport for goods and people.
Material and spiritual culture of the Saks.
The material culture of nomads living in the vast territory from Southern
Siberia, Altai and to the Northern Black Sea region has a lot in common, and
only in the art there are some differences.
Herodotus wrote that nomads lived in wooden houses. In the winter they
were covered with a tight white
felt. Apparently, these were yurts.
A traditional yurt (from the
Turkic languages) or
ger (Mongolian) is a portable,
round tent covered with skins or
felt and used as a dwelling by
several distinct nomadic groups in
the steppes of  Central Asia (p.34).

Picture 34. A traditional yurt.

One of the remarkable monuments of the ancient Saks is the “Golden
Man”was found in the Issyk burial mound, 50 km from Almaty. This mound
was excavated in 1969-1970. Presumably, the Saks’s prince is buried here.
According to scientists, he was about 17-18 years old. According to ancient
Saks’s customs, the deceased was dressed in the best clothes, fully equipped
with weapons. The burial contained over 4,000 different beautifully executed
gold plates, fasteners and ornaments.
The Saks’jewelry art was highly developed. The ancient craftsmen had the
art to cast molten gold into molds. They made Combs depicting animal heads,
earrings, rings, bracelets, clasps with precious stones set in them, adorned the
clothes of Saks women.

Picture 35. Animal style.

Outstanding jewelry craftsmanship of the Saks entered the world treasury
under the code name “the art of animal style” - a conventional term for a style
widespread in ancient art (p.35).
Characteristics of the animal style include the keen observation of nature,
realistic depictions of animal forms and movements, and dynamic compositions
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depicting animal combat. The most prevalent representations are of herbivorous
animals, predatory beasts and birds, and imaginary creatures (for example,
griffins). Animal figures were engraved on metal and molded and carved on
wood and bone. Leather and felt applique and tattoos on the human body were
also rendered in the animal style.
Animals were depicted in stylized poses (for example, fighting or leaping);
hoofed animals were represented with their legs tucked under their bodies and
predators were shown curled up in a ball. Conventional devices were employed
to render various parts of an animal’s body (for example, eyes were represented
by circles, horns by volutes, and mouths by semicircles). Sometimes only a
portion of an animal (for example, the head, paws, or claws), symbolizing the
animal as a whole, was depicted.
In the writings of Herodotus, there is a lot of valuable information about
the economy, life, customs and traditions, rituals, clothes of the Saks. For
example, Saks wore pointed felt hats, a dagger and a bow were hung from a belt.
In addition, Herodotus gives a description of the Saks baths. On a large
stone, located in the center of the yurt, a fire was kindled and heated. Then the
hot stone was poured with water until the yurt was filled with steam. Such a bath
also existed among the Kazakhs in the past.
Spiritual culture. Nomads believed in an afterlife, they had a cult of
ancestors. Burials took place in the ancestral cemetery, which was located not
far from the places of residence. Therefore, wherever a person died, his body
was buried in this particular cemetery. That is why, when a dispute arose among
the people about the land, a person could give such an argument: “Here are the
bones of my ancestors and parents, therefore this is my land.”
Ancient Greek, ancient Iranian and ancient Chinese sources indicate that
the Sun was the main god in whom the ancient nomads believed. In his honor,
sacrifices were made and animals were slaughtered.
Apparently, the cult of fire as a sacred all-purifying element is derived
from the cult of the Sun. The people still have cults associated with the worship
of fire.
The basis of religion of the ancient Turks was the worship of the sky -
Tengri, Earth and Umai - the patroness of the hearth and children.And
ancient people believed that their lords (mentioned before) give them strength
and help them in all affairs. According to their ideas, the earth - mother is
endowed with sacred power. Saks most of all worshiped fire and the sun as
purifying powers.The Turks also worshiped sacred places and ancestral spirits.
The first outstanding philosopher of the Saks was Anacharsis, a scientist
(VII-VI centuries BC). The years of birth and death of the scientist are
unknown. Anacharsis belonged to the royal dynasty, his mother was Hellenic.
He was educated in Greece, studied with famous scientists of that time. His
name is often mentioned in “History” of Herodotus and “State” of Plato. Plato
put Anacharsis next to Homer and Thales, and in another work he calls him one

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of the seven sages of the world. Anacharsis was on friendly terms with the ruler
of Athens, the outstanding Greek lawyer and thinker Solon.
Another ancient Scythian thinker who has become widely known is
Toksary. He lived around the early 7th century BC. When Toksary arrived in
Greece, he was over thirty. Lucian in his book “Scythia and the Guest” writes:
“The Greeks brought him every year as a holy Prophet from a foreign land a
sacrifice”. In the book of Lucian he: “We sacrifice for the sake of good people.
In honor of them, we distribute refreshments and arrange a wedding. We respect
ancestors and preach their kindness to the living. Therefore, most living people
want to be like them, and leave a kind word and an indelible mark” - said Saint
Toksary.
The sacred culture of the Saks, Scythians, Sarmatians is based on the idea
of a world tree. This is an idea of the three-part structure of the Universe, the
beginning of which is the world tree. Each zones of the tree has its own symbol
or code, represented in the form of an animal (bird, hoofed animal, predator).

Picture 36. A world tree.

The cosmos of human life consists of three parts, of three worlds: the
Upper world (sky), the Middle world (earth) and the Lower world
(underground) (p.36).
Nomadic peoples believed that in each of
these worlds there is a life and that this life is
similar to the life of the Middle World, in which
people themselves live.
This huge wonderful tree unites all three
worlds: Upper, Middle, Lower, making it a single
whole. For the fabulous perception of ancient
people, it seemed natural that there is such a great
tree, which with its roots goes deep into the earth,
and reaches the high heavens with its top (p.37).

Picture 37. A world tree.

The prototype of the world tree in Kazakh mythology is the sacred
treeBaiterek. A bird sits at the top, and a giant dragon snake wraps around its

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roots deep underground. And in the middle part, on the surface of the earth,
there is a man, opposite him - animals and beasts.
The bird that sits at the top of the world tree is called Samuryk or
Simiurge - a magic bird, the king of all birds. The Samuryk bird, as a rule,
helps the warrior to perform his feats. But the warrior must first defeat the evil
underground serpent, which every year crawls up the tree to the nest and eats its
chicks. Batyr kills the snake and thus deserves her help in his difficult military
affairs.

10.3. NATURAL MONUMENTS AND MONUMENTS OF

MATERIAL CULTURE OF SAKS, MASSAGETS, SARMATIANS,
HUNS.

Many monuments of the material and cultural heritage of our ancestors

have been found on the Kazakh land. These are, first of all, human settlements,
ancient buildings, hearth sites, weapons, household items, jewelry, even the
bones of animals hunted by ancient people, the bones of animals they raised.
During archaeological excavations, many arrowheads, spears, knives, hoes,
graters, axes, hammers, clubs, pottery were found, and many stone products
were found. In burials, along with the bones of people, various household items
are found, in later burials - bronze items, gold and silver jewelry.
Some of the monuments of the ancient Saks are the burial places of the
Saks leaders. They are found on the banks of the Talas, Chu, Ili rivers, in
Kyrgyzstan, on the slopes of the Ili and Dzhungars Alatau (mountain), in the
Kegen and Narynkol foothills.
The most important source on the history of the Saks tribes, their material,
spiritual culture are archaeological sites - burial grounds, rock paintings,
treasures of Saks things.
Monuments of ancient culture have been found in the Aral region in
Chirik-Rabat, Babish-Molda,
Balanda, and other burials.
Chirik - Rabat was the capital of
the Apasiacs. According to scientists,
Apasiacs are Saks who lived on the
banks of rivers. Chirik-Rabat was
located 300 km from the present
regional center - the city of Kyzylorda,
in the south-western direction from it, in
the Kyzyl Kum desert (p.38).

Picture 38. Chirik-Rabat.

In the center of the city, on an area of 12 hectares, there was a quadrangular
fortress - a citadel. There are four burial mounds in the citadel. Scientists
unearthed one of them, but the burial site turned out to be looted. It contained

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various knives, bronze heads of chtrel, dating back to the 5th - 4th centuries BC.
Along with the bones of the dead, there were also gold jewelry - clasps,
fragments of earthenware. Parts of the iron armor of the Apasiac warrior were
also recovered.
Babish-Molda is also located in the Aral region. It is smaller in area than
Chirik - Rabat. But it also has powerful defensive structures with fortifications,
duals and a circular moat. During the excavations, a kiln for burning clay
objects, bases for hand mills, the remains of millet, bones of domestic animals,
and many fragments of pottery were found.
Among the archaeological monuments of the Saks tribes, mounds and
burial grounds prevail. The appearance of the burial grounds in each region has
its own characteristics. For example, in Zhetysu and South Kazakhstan, the Saks
burial grounds are very high, most of them are huge burial fields with hundreds
of embankments. Such burial grounds are found in the Ili River valley. In
archaeological science they are called “royal burial mounds.” Burial grounds of
Eastern and Central Kazakhstan are usually small and medium in size. Burial
grounds Kargaly, Karashoky, Besshatyr, Issyk have been explored on the
territory of Zhetysu.

11. CULTURAL HERITAGE OF THE ANCIENT TURKS

11.1. ART OF THE HUNS. ANIMAL STYLE OF THE
HUNS.HUNNIC HEROES.

The Huns are tribes that lived in Central Asia and migrated across
Eurasia.
The Huns subjugated a number of peoples in the south of Eastern Europe
and by the end of the 4th century became the leading military and political force
here, playing an important role at the initial stage of the Great Nations
Migration. The largest of the Huns’ associations in the 370s was headed by
Balamber.
In the 420s, the consolidation of the Huns began. Ruga (Rua) became their
ruler. In 434, Ruga was replaced by his nephews Attila and Bled (from 445,
having killed his brother, Attila began to rule alone). In 427 or 433, by treaty
with the Western Roman Empire, the Huns gained control of the lands in
Pannonia. In 436, Attila’s Huns defeated the Burgundians (as reflected in the
legend of the Nibelungs).
By the middle of the 5th century, the state of the Huns was formed,
stretching from the Danube to the Volga region and the North Caucasus and
including many peoples.
The Huns had their own cities. The Roman historian Priisk wrote: “Having
crossed some rivers, we arrived at one huge settlement, which was the palace of
Attila. He was more magnificent than the other palaces he had in other places,
we were assured. It was built of logs and planks, skillfully hewn, and surrounded
by a wooden fence, more serving for decoration than for protection. The royal

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palace was decorated with hipped roofs, towers and turrets, towering over the
fence. Almost all the houses were chopped - the log was fitted to the log”.
The bathhouse made of white stone especially surprised the Priisk.
Hunnic jewelers have achieved excellence in the manufacture of gold
jewelry. Another type of decoration was inlay, when colored stones were
inserted into the product for beauty. Scientists call this style “polychrome
style”. The Huns skillfully made silver and gold jewelry. The “animal style”
was often used in the product.
The animal style got its name from the fact that a significant part of the
objects of material culture (weapons,clothes, utensils, horse equipment) were
decorated with animal images, performed by special techniques: feline predators
or wolves curled up in a ring; herbivores with legs bent under the belly; hoofed
animals; emphasizing and hyperbolizing certain parts of the body - ears, claws,
eyes, muzzle, horns, beak, muscles, etc.;
Animal style is kind of sign system, that expresses through a certain set of
zoomorphic symbols and plots the worldview of the Eurasian nomads of
Eurasia. It reflects the special dynamism, mobility, and militancy of nomadic
communities. This style is an unique, vibrant, fine art, highlighting the culture of
the ancient nomads of Eurasia.
Attila one of greatest leader of the Hun’s tribe.
With his aggressive raids Attila expanded his state to an enormous size.
Attila’s appearance, according to contemporaries, was unattractive: he was a
stocky man, stout, with a dark complexion, small sunken eyes, a flat nose and a
sparse beard; but his proud gait and severity of expression made an impressive
impression. Despite his wildness, he showed self-esteem, sedateness, justice.
Thus, he formed a strong alliance of peoples from: Ostrogoths, Gepids,
Thuringians, Heruls, Rugii, Khozars, etc.
Attila was the threat of the Eastern Roman Empire. He forced the Emperor
Theodosius II to pay him a huge tribute, and conquered the entire right bank of
the lower Danube to his power.
Attila’s huge empire stretched from southern Germany to the Volga and the
Urals and from the Baltic Sea to the Caucasus.
There are different legends about Attila:
1. The Sword of AttilaThe Sword was the legendary weapon carried by
Attila the Hun. The Roman historian Jordanes, quoting the work of the
historian Priscus, gave the story of its origin:
“When a certain shepherd beheld one heifer of his flock limping and could
find no cause for this wound, he anxiously followed the trail of blood and at
length came to a sword it had unwittingly trampled while nibbling the grass. He
dug it up and took it straight to Attila. He rejoiced at this gift and, being
ambitious, thought he had been appointed ruler of the whole world, and that
through the sword of Mars supremacy in all wars was assured to him”.
2. Attila’s calling by Honoria

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 Honoria was the older sister of the Western Roman Emperor Valentinian
III. She is famous for her plea of love and help to Attila the Hun, which led to
his proclamation of his claim to rule the Western Roman Empire.
Her brother decided to marry Honoria to a Roman senator named Bassus
Herculanus who was considered “safe” and unlikely to use this connection to
seize the throne. Faced with this unwanted marriage, Honoria sought the aid of
Attila the Hun. She sent the Hunnish king a plea for help – and her ring – in the
spring of 450. Though Honoria may not have intended a proposal of marriage,
Attila chose to interpret her message as such. He accepted, asking for half of the
western Empire as dowry. When Valentinian discovered the plan, again only the
influence of his mother Galla Placidia convinced him to exile, rather than kill,
Honoria. He also wrote to Attila strenuously denying the legitimacy of the
supposed marriage proposal.
For years Attila had been planning to invade Rome and Honoria’s letter
gave him the excuse to make his move. Attila sent an emissary to Ravenna in
451 to proclaim that Honoria was innocent, that the proposal had been
legitimate, and that he would come to claim what was rightfully his. Attila made
a similar demand in 452, which was followed by his failed invasion of northern
Italy.
3. The Meeting of Leo I and Attila.
In 452, Attila the Hun led an army to attack Rome. In order to protect the
vulnerable city, Pope Leo met with Attila. It is unclear exactly what was said
between the two leaders. What we do know is that at the end of the meeting,
Attila and his army departed, leaving Rome untouched.
Chosen as Supreme Pontiff while away in Gaul, Leo was regarded as an
accomplished diplomat, and rightly so.
Attila, as a warrior who shocked Europe with his campaigns and captured
the imaginations of his contemporaries, was extremely popular throughout the
European Middle Ages, and was reflected in the folk tradition and epic works of
that time.
The image of Attila (Atli) is in the “Elder Edda” - a collection of songs
about gods and heroes, which became widespread in Iceland in the XIII century.
It should be noted that their mythological versions, in which Attila appears (for
example, “Songs of Atli”, “Atli’s Speeches”), are older than epic narratives.
The image of Attila in Germanic epic legends, especially in the “Song of
the Nibelungs”, where he appears under the name Etzel, is interpreted in a
positive way. He is shown as a powerful, virtuous ruler, hospitable and just with
the vassals, although not devoid of human weaknesses. According to
researchers, such an idealization of Etzel (Attila) as a magnanimous gracious
monarch reflects certain historical realities of the past, when the Ostrogoths
occupied a subordinate position in relation to the Huns.
The image of Attila attracted the attention of many writers, composers,
artists - Raphael (Vatican fresco “Meeting of Saint Leo and Attila”), P.
Corneille (tragedy “Attila”), G. Verdi (opera “Attila”), A. Bornier (drama

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“Wedding of Attila”), Z. Werner (romantic tragedy”Attila”), Anglo-German-
Scandinavian heroic epics, Handel (opera”Aetius”) and many others.

11.2. COSMOGONY AND MYTHOLOGY OF THE ANCIENT

TURKS. CULT OF ANCESTORS.TENGRIANISM.

Tengrianism is a religion that emerged at the end of the 2nd - 1st

millennium BC. There is no complete agreement among scientists in
understanding the essence of Tengrianism. Some researchers came to the
conclusion that this is a doctrine from a complete concept with ontology (the
doctrine of a single deity), cosmology (the concept of three worlds with the
possibilities of mutual communication), mythology and demonology
(distinguishing ancestral spirits from the spirits of nature) by the XII-XIII
centuries.
The Tengri cult is the cult of the Blue Sky. This is a male deity, God the
Father. Tengri Khan was thought of as a God of truly cosmic proportions, as a
single beneficent, all-knowing and just. He ruled over the destinies of a person,
nation, state. He is the creator of the world, and He is the world himself.
Everything in the Universe obeyed him, including all the celestials, spirits and,
of course, people.
The peculiarity of Tengrianism was the allocation of three zones of the
Universe: heavenly, earthly and underground, each of which, in turn, was
perceived as visible and invisible.
The invisible (other) heavenly world consisted of three, nine or more
horizontal tiers, each of which was the abode of one or another deity. The Great
Spirit of Heaven, Tengri, lived on the highest tier. Light and benevolent deities
and spirits were referred to the heavenly zone. They moved on horses, so horses
were sacrificed to them. In the visible sky, the near one - domed, the sun and
moon, stars and rainbow were located.
The middle world, invisible, was inhabited by deities and spirits of the
surrounding nature: masters of mountains, forests, waters, passes, springs. They
ruled the visible world and were closest to people. If the steppe, the mountain
valley belonged to people, then the places located above or below were
inhabited by host spirits, and a person, being a guest there, penetrated this line
after a simple sacrifice. The relationship between people and spirits was
understood as a relationship of partnership. The Turks made public sacrifices to
the most significant spiritual owners of mountains, forests and waters. It was
believed that the economic well-being of society depended on them.
The lower, underground world, invisible, was the concentration of evil
forces led by the powerful deity Erlik. It was also multi-layered, inhabited by
people whose lifespan in the middle world had ended.
In the ancient Turkic worldview, the world was experienced emotionally as
an action, change, in constant dynamics. The main function of the world is the
continuity of life, its constant renewal, and man, as part of the world, was vitally

81
interested in it. All rituals, ceremonies, holidays were aimed at prolonging
existence, which were coordinated with natural rhythms (time, sequential
change of seasons and movement of heavenly bodies) on the basis of labor
activity.
The ancient Türks believed that the Universe was ruled by: Tengri Khan -
the supreme deity; deities: Yer-su, Umai, Erlik, Earth, Water, Fire, Sun,
Moon, Stars, Air, Clouds, Wind, Tornado, Thunder and Lightning, Rain,
Rainbow. Tengri Khan, sometimes with Yer (Earth) and other spirits, did
earthly affairs and, first of all, “distributed the terms of life”; the birth of “men’s
children” was in charge of Umai - the personification of the female deity. Earth
and Tengri were perceived as two sides of the same beginning. Man was born
and lived on earth.
Deeply revered by the ancient Turks was “the cult of ancestors-heroes
who became famous for their exploits on the battlefield”. The Turks erected
stone monuments to their glorious ancestors. Stone monuments in ancient times
stood from Altai to Danube and were destroyed in the Middle Ages after the
adoption of world religions by the Turks.
The tradition of venerating the spirits of ancestors obliged the Turks to
know their ancestry up to the seventh generation.
The worship of ancestors among the Turks (and Mongols) found
expression in their totemic attitude to the Wolf - the gray wolf Bozkurt. The
ancient Turks believed that their ancestors descended from Heaven and with
them the “heavenly wolf” - the ancestor spirit, the patron spirit. Bozkurt is a
wolf-warrior, a leader who led the Turks on the path of military victories
The ancestor-Bozkurt appeared in those historical moments when the
Turkic people were on the brink of extinction, and every time He revived it.

11.3. CULTURAL HERITAGE OF THE TURKIC PEOPLES

INHABITING THE TERRITORY OF KAZAKHSTAN.

In the VI-VII centuries the Turkic-speaking tribes of Central Asia, which

were part of the Turkic Kaganate already used their own script. Obviously, the
need for writing arose from the needs of administrative and diplomatic practice,
from the needs of recording state acts and state tradition; religious motives could
also play a role.
There were types of Turkic writing: Sogdian, Brahmi, Manichean,
Uighur
The most ancient monument of the Turkic Kaganate is the Bugut
inscription in Central Mongolia. The inscription is made in the Sogdian
language; on the other side of the stele there was also a short Sanskrit brahmi
inscription, almost completely destroyed by erosion.

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 Picture 38. Huge stone steles with inscriptions.
At the beginning of the formation of the Türkic Kaganate, no later than
the first half of the 7th century, a new letter arose on the basis of Sogdian
writing in the Turkic environment. The ancient Türkic writing was called runic.
In 1889 the Russian scientist N.M. Yadrintsev discovered in Northern
Mongolia, in the valley of the Orkhon River, huge stone steles with inscriptions
in runic script. The texts found were deciphered and read by the Danish scientist
V. Thomsen and the Russian Turkologist V.V. Radlov (p.38).
Large runic texts of Mongolia and Yenisei are important historical
documents. The two largest runic texts are especially important - the inscriptions
in honor of Bilge Kagan and Kul Tegin. The author of this was a different
person but it was written at the end of the texts on behalf of BILGE KAGAN .In
all medieval Turkic-language literature, there are no such highlighted examples
of political prose that have preserved the traditional forms of oratory and the
oral narration of the hero’s deeds processed over the centurie.

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 When the blue sky above
and the brown earth below were
created, between them a human
being was created. Over the
human beings, my ancestors
Bumin Kagan and Istemi Kagan
ruled. They ruled people by
Turkish laws, they led them and
succeeded. From all four sides
there were enemies. They sent
there lance-bearing armies to
conquer all those people in the
four quarters of the world and
made them still. They made bow
those, who had heads and made
kneel those, who had knees. To
eastwards up to the Kadyrkhan
mountain forests and westwards as
far as the Iron Gate they went on
campaign There were Kok (Blue)
Turks between the two boundaries,
having neither rulers nor masters.
Wise kagans were they. Great
kagans were they. Their buyruqs
(officials), too, were wise and
brave, indeed. They were great
too. Both the lords and people
were straightforward and honest.
For this reason, kagans were able
to rule the state..(p.39).

Picture 39. Huge stone steles with inscriptions.

The inscriptions relate the legendary origins of the Turks, the golden age
of their history, their subjugation by the Chinese, and their liberation by Ilterish
Qaghan.
There are some outstanding monuments of the medieval heroic epic of the
Oghuz Turks .The Book of Dede Korkut or Book of Korkut Ata is the most
famous among. The book is a processing of epic legends that developed among
the Turkic peoples from the 9th to the 15th century. The stories carry morals and
values significant to the social lifestyle of the nomadic Turkic peoples and their
pre-Islamic beliefs.
The twelve stories that comprise the bulk of the work were written down
after the Turks converted to Islam, and the heroes are often portrayed as good
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Muslims while the villains are referred to as infidels, but there are also many
references to the Turks’ pre-Islamic magic. The character Dede Korkut, i.e.
“Grandfather Korkut”, is a widely renowned soothsayer and bard, and serves to
link the stories together, and the thirteenth chapter of the book compiles sayings
attributed to him. “In the dastans, Dede Korkut appears as the aksakal [literally
‘white-beard,’ the respected elder], the advisor or sage, solving the difficulties
faced by tribal members. ... The historian Rashid-al-Din Hamadani (d. 1318)
says that Dede Korkut was a real person and lived for 295 years; that he
appeared in the time of the Oghuz ruler Inal Syr Yavkuy Khan, by whom he was
sent as ambassador to the Prophet; that he became Muslim; that he gave advice
to the Great Khan of the Oghuz, attended the election of the Great Khan, and
gave names to children.
Religious beliefs of the Turks from VI to VIII centuries
The territory of the Turkic peoples, located in the center of Eurasia,
influenced the penetration of various religious movements. Buddhism,
Zoroastrianism, Nestorianism and Manichaeism became such religious
movements.
Buddhism began to penetrate into South Kazakhstan and Semirechye from
the middle of the 1st century BC. Since the VI century Turkic aristocracy and
part of urban population preached Buddhism. There are Chinese sources telling
that the Chinese emperor Wong Kung (570-576) sent the Great Turkic kagan
Taspar (572-581), as a gift a Turkic translation of the work “Nirvana Sutra”,
considered one of the sacred books of the Buddhist religion. Taspar Kagan
wanted to force his subjects to accept this religion, but did not succeed.
Zoroastrianism arose in the 7th-6th centuries BC in Iran. Zoroastrianism
is characterized by the veneration of the 4 elements of the Universe: water, fire,
earth, air. Zoroastrianism introduced to the southern cities of Kazakhstan in the
VI-VII centuries.
Nestorianism was also widespread among the Turks. In the VI century.
Christians preached their faith among the nomadic Turks. In the VII-VIII
centuries in the cities of South Kazakhstan and Semirechye widely spread
Christianity of the Nestorian persuasion, which came from Central Asia,
where its main center was the city of Merv. In Taraz and Merke,
Christianwerechurches. In 1109 the Kerait (tribes of the Turks) adopted
Christianity according to the Nestorian confession.Before Genghis Khan the
official religionthe Kerait and the Naiman were Nestorianism.Manichean
teaching was adopted in Semirechye, starting from the turn of the 5th-6th
centuries, first by the Iranian-speaking Sogdians, and from the 6th century. - and
by the Turkic-speaking tribes, which also used the symbol of the cross. In the VI
century in Iran, all non-Zoroastrian, “heretical” communities were persecuted.
This led to a mass exodus of Iranian Manichaeans to the east and northeast.

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 12. MEDIEVAL CULTURE OF CENTRAL ASIA
12.1. SILK ROAD: KAZAKHSTAN AS A CONNECTING LINK
BETWEEN EAST AND WEST.

Medieval Kazakhstan (VII - XVIII centuries)

The Middle Ages were marked by the establishment of Turkic rule over the
entire territory of Kazakhstan. During this period, the Turkic, Turgesh,
Karluk, Oguz and Kimak kaganates, the Kypchak Khanate and the
Karakhanid State were formed. Such states as the Golden Horde, Ak-Orda and
Mogulistan successfully developed here. This led to the fact that in the XIV-
XVII centuries. the formation of the Kazakh nation was completed and the first
Kazakh state, the Kazakh Khanate, was formed.
The urgent need for the development of economic, cultural, diplomatic ties
has led to the emergence of various trade routes. The most famous is the “Great
Silk Road”, which emerged more than 2000 years ago. An intensive exchange
of material and spiritual values followed this path. During its heyday, the Silk
Road and its offshoots constituted the longest route in the world, stretching from
the Atlantic coast in Spain to Shanghai in China. This route was crossed by
many meridian roads connecting Central Asia with India and other southern
countries of the Eurasian continent.
The centers of culture, religion, trade, communication between agricultural
oases and nomadic steppe, between East and West on the Great Silk Road were
cities in the valleys of the Syr Darya, Talas, Chu, Ili rivers - Isfidjab, Otrar,
Taraz, Sygnak, Yangikent, Suyab, Kayalyk, Merke, Kulan and others. They
were formed in the VI -X centuries. Artisans, traders, farmers lived in the cities,
there were markets, public places, money was minted. They have developed a
local architectural and construction tradition.
The Great Silk Road,was a connecting route for the civilians of East and
West which came into use from the 2nd century b.c.e. to 16 century.This path
began in the central regions of China. It countinued from China to Central and
South Asia, i.e from Turks to the Greeks.

12.2. DIALOGUE OF INDIAN AND CENTRAL ASIAN

CULTURES. MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF INDIAN CULTURE AND
TURKIC CIVILIZATION.

The intensive trade exchange on the Great Silk Road made it possible to
establish contacts between the four most important centers of civilizations:
China, India, Western Asia and Europe.
The territory of the Turks became a connecting link of the Eastern
European and Mediterranean-Middle Eastern regions with China and India. The
specificity of their location was that three religious systems interacted there:
Christian, Hindu-Buddhist and Sino-Confucian.

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 There is a fact of the penetration of the Turks into South Asia only in the
second half of the 1st millennium. Around 625 A.D. Ton Yabgu Kagan (kagan
of the Western Turkic Khaganate from 618 to 630) for the first time established
direct Turkic (pre-Islamic) rule in North-Western India. Most scholars believe
that Islam in its soft, tolerant form came to India precisely from the territory of
Central Asia. Since that time, people of Turkic origin began to appear at the
courts of some Indian, in particular, Kashmiri rulers, often occupying high
positions.
In the late X - early XI centuries.the northwestern regions of India (Multan
and Sindh), after being conquered by Mahmud Ghaznevi, became part of the
Turkic-Afghan state of the Ghaznavids.
The culmination of the penetration of the Turkic (and more broadly,
Central Asian) element into South Asia is the formation of the Delhi Sultanate
(1206-1526).
Some rulers and entire dynasties of the Delhi Sultanate were Turkic (the
founders of the sultanate were Mahmud Gaznevi and Qutub ud-Din Aybek,
Shams ud-Din Iltutmysh, Giyas ud-Din Balban, Tuglakids, etc.).
Other Turkic representatives of Central Asia continued to appear
sporadically in India, including Jelal ad-Din Manguberdi in 1221, the Central
Asian Chagataids, and the Turks in the army of Tamerlane in 1398-99. At the
court of Tamerlane, Zain-ul-Abidin lived for several years, the future the ruler of
Kashmir, who introduced North India to a number of Central Asian
achievements.
From this period, Central Asia and the states of the Islamic world begin to
interact with India as an element of the same world, largely understanding and
sharing Muslim values. At the same time, Central Asian newcomers in South
Asia were exposed to Indian influence, and carried this Indian imprint to Central
Asia in contacts with it.
Central Asian values and ideas came to India along with the Mughal
dynasty (1526-1858). Moreover, these values and ideas were supported at an
almost unchanged level by all Mughal padishahs. It is interesting to pose and
search for an answer to the question of the Turkic or other origin of certain
individuals within the Turkic and Mongol-Turkic empires in India.
The exchange of technological and cultural achievements between the
regions of Central and South Asia was active, in which the Turks and the Turkic
culture played an important role. Medicine and mathematics were one of the
main areas of knowledge. In India, there was a “Samarkand school” of
astronomy, and Jaipur and Delhi, built in the 17th century in the Jantar-Mantar
observatory had Ulugbek’s observatory as a model. There was also an
exchange of achievements in the areas of literature, painting (up tomixed
“Indian-Turanian” styles), calligraphy, book publishing, gardening, carpet
weaving, metallurgy, jewelry, stone processing, fabric making,weapons,
ceramics and paper, in sports, etc .; to the greatest extent, such a Turkic
influence affected Kashmir, as practically all Indian historians say. In the XVI

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century on the basis of the Indianization of Alisher Navoi’s poetry, even the so-
called “Indian style” of poetry emerged, followers of which were present both
in South and Central Asia.
In general, during the Middle Ages, there was an intensive introduction into
India of a vast Turkic ethnic component in the form of ruling dynasties and their
immediate environment, army units, including the military command,local
administrators and officials, artisans, scientists, people of art and culture,
merchants, and political exiles from Central Asia.

12.3. TURKIC CULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES.

Turkic medieval culture entered the world treasury of cultures. A unique

combination of two types of economy, a mixture of peoples, languages, gave
rise to cultural phenomena, to this day striking in their depth, refinement of
thought, beauty.
Material culture includes dwellings, clothes, household items. The
dwellings are represented by collapsible houses - yurts and stone, adobe houses
in the settled zone. The medieval yurt was similar to the traditional Kazakh one,
it was covered with felt, the entrance was always from the east side. The hearth
was located in the center. In wintering houses, dwellings were built mainly of
adobe bricks and wood. Felt and woolen carpets served as decoration.
Construction of a Yurt.Yurt is a round-shaped, sophisticated construction
with a dome. It consists of three main parts and many other smaller parts. Three
mainparts include Shanyrak – top of the Yurt, Kerege – walls carcass and
Uwyk – a carcasspart from Kerege to the Shanyrak. The carcass is usually
covered with pieces of felt fromoutside and decorated with carpets from
inside(p.40).
It should be noted, that Shanyrak is extremely valuable for Kazakhs and is
considered tobe a sacred symbol of family wellbeing and piece.

Picture 40.Construction of a Yurt.

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 The clothes of the Turks were made of wool, skins and leather, thin felt.
A long-length caftan with edging was common for the Turks.
The food of the nomadic population was determined by the way of life.
These are dairy and meat products. Wild plants, berries, fruits, and cereals were
widely used.
The cities of the 6th-12th centuries played an important role in the
development of the Turkic civilization in the 10th-12th centuries.
The centers of culture, religion, trade, communication between
agricultural oases and nomadic steppe, between East and West on the Great Silk
Road were cities in the valleys of the Syr Darya, Talas, Chu, Ili rivers - Isfidjab,
Otrar, Taraz, Sygnak, Yangikent, Suyab, Kayalyk, Merke, Kulan, etc.
(p.41).
The cities were distinguished by a high level of improvement. Plumbing
and sewerage (tashnau), laid from special pottery pipes, were common for them.
This was dictated by the need to maintain cleanliness in a hot climate, the
presence of natural foci of dangerous infections. In each of the cities there were
reservoirs for storing drinking water in case of a siege, food supplies. Each of
the cities had public buildings - mosques, libraries, baths.

Picture 41. The citieson the Great Silk Road.

12.4. AL-FARABI’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE FORMATION OF

MEDIEVAL CULTURE AND SCIENCE.

The evidence of the development of medieval culture is the scientific

activity of the philosopher, scientist-encyclopedist, a native of Otrar (Farab)
Abu Nasr al-Farabi (870-950). He was engaged in philosophy, mathematics,
geodesy, architecture, music theory, and is known for research in the field of
ethics. He was given the title “Mu-Allim Assana - Second Teacher” (the first
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meant Aristotle). Farabi made a great contribution to the science of logic. He
visited almost all cities related to the culture and science of the Middle and Near
East - Bukhara, Merv, Alexandria, Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad. Farabi died
in Damascus.
Farabi - scientist, world-class thinker; he brought together and synthesized
in his works the achievements of the Arab, Persian, Greek, Indian, Turkic
cultures. His works: “The Big Book of Music”, “Word on the Classification of
Sciences”, “Gemmas of Wisdom”, “Treatise on the views of the inhabitants of a
virtuous city”. Farabi’s manuscripts are available in many libraries around the
world.
Al-Farabi was quite educated in many sciences. His activity began with the
study of the works of the great Greek philosophers. When commenting on
them, he tried to convey their thoughts in simple language. Sometimes for this
he had to state all this in his own words. Al-Farabi used a scientific method of
analyzingthe compositions of ancients with a thorough explanation of the topic.
At the same time, Al-Farabi could combine several works of Aristotle or Plato
at once in order to convey to the students the meaning of their philosophy.
The great scientist laid the foundations of a new philosophy, according to
which everything that exists is divided into 6 stages, interconnected by cause-
and-effect relationships:
The first step is the root cause of the appearance of all that exists.
The second is the appearance of everything.
The third stage is an active and developing mind.
The fourth is the soul.
The fifth step is form.
The sixth is matter.
These steps underlie everything that surrounds a person, and the scientist
divides them into 2 types: Things and states, which he called “possibly
existing”, since their nature is not always caused by the necessity of their
existence. The latter, on the contrary, always exist on their own and are called
“necessarily existing”. The root cause of everything Al-Farabi called God. The
second reason isthe emergence of planets and other celestial bodies, which by
their naturediffer from earthly forms.Al-Farabi defined the third stagecosmic
mind, which cares about wildlife and seeksbring the world to perfection. The
last 3 steps are related to our world, and the scientist paid close attention to
them.
The doctrine of the ideal city-state.The scientist paid a lot of attention to
such aspects of life as happiness, morality, war and government policy. He
dedicated to them such work: “Treatise on the achievement of happiness”;
“Ways of Happiness”; “Treatise on War and Peaceful Life”; etc. Al-Farabi
invented a city which ran under the counsel of preachers and philosophers and
its people did good deeds and avoided evil.In contrast to this ideal society, the
author describes the region as the cities where resentment, the desire for wealth
and the lack of sacredness prevails comparatively to this perfect society.

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 About music.Al-Farabi dedicated a lot of time to musicology. Thus, he
gave the concept of musical sounds, described their nature and found out from
which category and element is the music composed of.

12.5. ABU REYHAN BIRUNI AS A MATHEMATICIAN AND

CULTURAL HISTORIAN.

Abu Reyhan Mohammad Ben Ahmad Biruni, a prominent scholar and

mathematician, astronomer, chronograph, anthropologist, indologist, historian,
chronologist and naturalist, was born on the 5 thof September 973 A.D. on the
outskirts of Khwarezm (Corasmia in Central Asia, today’s Uzbekistan) and for
this reason it became famous as Biruni, that is “outside Khwarezm”.
He is the author of numerous works. His most important works are: “Ketāb
al-Tafhim dar ryāzyāt va nojum” (both in Arabic and Persian, on mathematics
and astronomy), “Kitāb al-athār al-bāqiyah” (“Chronology of ancient nations” ,
a comparative study on the calendars of different cultures and civilizations such
as Iranian, Greek, Jewish, Christian, pre-Islamic Arabic and Muslim Arabic),
“Qānun-e Mas’udi” (The Mas’ud Canon, a sort of encyclopaedia on astronomy)
islamic and “Kitāb al tahqiq ma li-l-hind” (a compendium of indology), “Kitāb
al-saydana fi al tibb,” on the particular chemical substances and their method of
preparation, “Kitāb al jamāhir fi marifat al- jawāhir “on the presentation of
mineral substances and in particular on jewels.
Biruni also mastered several languages such as: the Corasmo, the Persian,
the Arabic and the Sanskrit and he knew the ancient Greek, the Hebrew of the
Torah and the Syriac and he edited the translation of numerous books from
Hindi to Arabic including: Siddhāntā, “Al mavālid al-saghir” (name of a famous
Iranian astrologer of the Islamic world).
He also translated stories from Persian to Arabic. Among these we can
mention the following: “Shādbahr”, “Ein al hayāt”, Tale of “Urmazdyār and
Mahryār and also the story” Sorkhbat and Jangbat “. Abu Reyhan Biruni is the
author of numerous inventions, discoveries and researches including: a scale to
measure the specific gravity of solids and also the definition of the quantity of
gold and silver in compound substances, the artesian well, the physical
characteristic of diamond and emerald, the possibility of emptiness, the creation
of the geographical sphere and so on. Biruni was a peer of Abu Ali Sinā with
whom he discussed and exchanged opinions.

12.6. ABU ALI IBN SINA AND HIS “CANON OF MEDICINE”.

Persian doctor, scientist, philosopher and poet Abu Ali al Hussein ibn
Abdallah Ibn Sina (Latinized name - Avicenna) was born in the village Afshan,
near Bukhara. He lived in Central Asia and Iran, studied mathematics,
astronomy, philosophy and medicine in Bukhara, served as a doctor and as a

91
Grand Viser (Prime Minister).He was a Muslim Peripatetic philosopher
influenced by Aristotelian philosophy.
Born in Bukhura, in what is now Uzbekistan, Ibn Sina had memorized the
complete Quran by the time he was 10. He was 16 when he decided to turn to
medicine, which he found very appealing and quite easy. While in his teens he
knew enough about medicine to treat the sick Samanid ruler, Nuh ibn Mansur.
This gave him what he wanted—access to the royal library, which had a large
collection of Greek philosophy and sciences. At age of 20, he was appointed
court physician and traveled widely, but somehow he found the time to write 20
books in other fields and 20 on medicine. After traveling to several places and
meeting famous contemporaries, he moved to Hamadan in present-day Iran and
completed many monumental writings. His Kitab al-Shifa (The book of healing)
is a medical and philosophical encyclopedia.
His most famous works are The Book of Healing, a philosophical and
scientific encyclopedia, and The Canon of Medicine, a medical encyclopedia
which became a standard medical text at many medieval universities and
remained in use as late as 1650.
Besides philosophy and medicine, Avicenna’s corpus includes writings on
astronomy, alchemy, geography and geology, psychology, Islamic theology,
logic, mathematics, physics and works of poetry.
Canon of Medicine represents a comprehensive set of all existing medical
knowledge during his time. He summarized Hippocrates (460-377 b.c.), Galen
(130-200), Dioscorides (40-90), and late-Alexandrian physicians. He tried to put
anatomy, physiology, diagnosis, and treatment into proper categories.
The five books of the Canon of Medicine are organized with summaries
and comments. Book One begins with the general principles of humors. Ibn
Sina elaborates on the versatility of the humoral theory and how it fits into the
four elements, four ages of man, and the four temperaments. He then moves on
to anatomy, physiology, hygiene, etiology (the origin of diseases), and
symptoms and treatments of disease.
Book Two deals with materia medica, or pharmaceuticals. He details all
known information on the physical properties of simple drugs and discusses how
to collect and preserve herbals. In a separate section he lists 740 different types
of medicinals.
Book Three zeroes in on specific diseases that he catalogs from head to
toe. He outlines the etiology, symptoms, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of
each one of these diseases.
Book Four tackles conditions that affect the entire body, including fevers,
infections, ulcers, abscesses, pustules, fractures, and injuries. Avicenna also
discusses poisons and includes a section on anorexia and obesity.
Book Five ends with a discussion of compound drugs, using terms like
theriacs, electuaries, emetics, pessaries, and liniments, along with their medical
uses.

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 Ibn Sina’s original contributions recognized the contagious nature of
phthsis and tuberculosis, the distribution of diseases through soil and water, and
the interaction of mind and body. He suggested a treatment for lacrymal fistula
and introduced a medical probe for the channel.

13. TURKS CULTURAL HERITAGE.

13.1. FEATURES OF MEDIEVAL TURKIC CULTURE: ISLAM
AND NOMADISM

At the beginning of the 10th century, the founder of the Karakhanid

dynasty, Satuk Bogra-khan converted to Islam. And his son Musa Bogra-
khan in 960 declared Islam the state religion. In the beginning, the Islamic
religion mainly spread in cities.
Mosques have become mandatory urban structures in the 10th century in
the cities of South Kazakhstan and Zhetysu. This is fully confirmed by
archaeological excavations. Thus, the remains of mosques were excavated in the
cities of Kuyryktobe, Balasagun, Taraz and Otrar.
The Islamization of the population took place slowly, over many centuries
on the territory of modern Kazakhstan.
The spread of the Arab-Islamic culture proceeded in different ways, often
favorable conditions were formed for the rise of this culture. To a large extent,
the spread of Islam was facilitated by the creation of centers Muslim education,
where translators and copyists of texts actively worked. On the territory of
Central Asia, one of such centers was Bukhara, on the territory Kazakhstan
Isfidzhab, Otrar. There was displacement of runic writing and the addition of a
new Turkic writing to Arabic script. Sufi orders “Yasaviyya” and
“Naqshbandiyya” spread their influence in South Kazakhstan.
But the nomadic population adhered to Tengrianism and ancestor cult. A
special version of the religious culture of Islam later spread among them.
There were various Sufi schools and orders on the Turk territory. The
organic combination of elements of traditional pre-Islamic (Tengrianism and
Zoroastrianism) and Sufi ideas was the specificity of the Islamization of the
nomadic Turks. Akhmet Yassavi, the recognized head of the Turkic tradition in
Sufism, vividly embodied in his activities the concept of “perfect man” (auliye).
The cult of auliye (saints) allowed Sufism to act as a mass folk religion, in
which ancient customs and cult practices received an Islamized treatment. The
worship of saints is nothing more than a modified worship of the ancestral
spirits (aruach).
The strengthening of the position of Islam in the country is associated with
the adoption of this religious doctrine by the khans of the Golden Horde in the
13th century. At the beginning of the XIV century, Sunni Hanafi madhhab
became the state religion in the empire.
Culture of the Karakhanid period.

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 In the Middle Ages, during the period of the Karakhanid state, Yusuf
Balasaguni and Mahmud Kashgari lived and worked, the creators of the
largest monuments of the Turkic language and literature. Yusuf was born in
Balasagun in 1015 or 1016.
Balasaguni’s birthplace Balasagun was located at the Burana
archaeological site near the present-day city of Tokmok in
Northern Kyrgyzstan. His father was one of the prominent and wealthy people
of that time. The young poet received his primary education in his hometown.
His main influences were Avicenna, Al-Farabi and Ferdowsi.
At the age of 54, Yusuf completed his work, “Kutadgu Bilig” (“Blessed
Knowledge”). He wrote, as he called it himself, in the Turkic language of the
Karakhanid era.
Mahmud Kashgari was an 11th-century Kara-Khanid scholar
and lexicographer of the Turkic languages from Kashgar. His father, Hussayn,
was the mayor of Barsgan, a town in the southeastern part of the lake of Issyk-
Kul (nowadays village of Barskoon in Northern Kyrgyzstan‘s Issyk-Kul Region)
and related to the ruling dynasty of Kara-Khanid Khanate.
Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk was compiled by Kashgari in the 1070s.
It contains linguistic data about multiple Turkic dialects that may have
been gathered from merchants and others involved in trade along routes that
travelled through the Oguz steppe. Scholars believe it is likely that Kashgari
would have gathered most of the content about Oguz-Turkmen from Oguz tribes
in Khorasan, since he himself was a student in Seljuk Baghdad, but its possible
that some of this material could have come from early Turkmen.

13.2. SUFI RENAISSANCE. THE INFLUENCE OF SUFISM ON

THE CULTURAL VALUES AND WORLDVIEW OF THE TURKS. THE
PERSONALITY AND ACTIVITY OF AHMED YASSAWI (YASAWI)
(1093-1166)

Sufism, known as tasawwuf in the Arabic-speaking world, is a form of

Islamic spirituality that highlights meditation and spiritual closeness with God.
It’s flexibility and “openness” to outside influences made it extremely
diverse. It arose in the 7th - 9th centuries, and finally took shape in the 10th -
12th centuries. It is clear that Sufism is not a single, monolithic worldview
concept. It comes from individual human experience, a mystical experience that
manifests itself subjectively in each person.
Sufism differs from orthodox Islam in that it dissolves God in nature and
in the world.
Sufis, describing the stages of approaching God, use the word Path -
Tariqat. The Sufi path consists of different kinds of steps (maqamas). A person
can feel associated with God by covering the path of tariqa and all the makamas.
Ten Steps of Sufism (maqamas):
1. Tauba meaning repentance (Remorse for your past conduct)

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 2. Zuhd meaning piety (Righteousness by virtue of being pious)
3. Wara meaning abstinence (act or practice of refraining from indulging
an appetite)
4. Faqr meaning poverty (state of having little or no money and few or no
material possessions)
5. Sabr meaning patience (good-natured tolerance of delay or
incompetence)
6. Shukra meaning gratitude (feeling of thankfulness and appreciation)
7. Raza meaning hope (Be optimistic; be full of hope; have hopes)
8. Riza meaning submission (act of submitting; usually surrendering power
to another)
9. Khauf meaning fear (emotion experienced in anticipation of some
specific pain or danger)
10. Tauvakkul meaning contentment (Happiness with one’s situation in
life)
The unity of God and the world is based on the idea that everything in the
world depends on God, but it cannot be comprehended by the mind or the
senses. If being has two hypostases “hak” and “khalk”, that is, truth and
diversity, then this unfolds in the form of a connection between essence and
phenomena, substance and modes, reason and phenomena. All this a person can
comprehend, only he can reach the connections between the divine and the
created, he can achieve an understanding of the divine essence. On this path,
there are five stages of being: the sensible world, the world of its ideas, the
world of the soul, absolute being as a divine essence, a perfect man as a union of
previous worlds.
Sufi thinkers did not reject the value of rational knowledge, but, at the same
time, noted the limitations of its capabilities. The main objective for them is to
search for the answers to the specified questions: what is God and man? Is it
possible to comprehend God?
Theologians interpreted the Islamic doctrine in accordance with the letter
of the Qur’an and the Sunnah, but Sufis tried to find hidden meaning in
prophetic revelations. So, the knowledge of theologians is knowledge of the
laws of God, and the Sufis strive for knowledge of the essence of God himself.
Therefore, rational knowledge is imperfect in comparison with the direct vision
of truth, which is given only in mystical experience.
The main role in cognition is played by intuition; it is the main
characteristic of immediate knowledge, which arises as a sudden insight.
The adherents of Sufism consider it possible, through contemplation, to
direct spiritual communication of a person with God, or even union with him,
which is achieved through ecstasy or spiritual enlightenment of a person.
Illumination or enlightenment is possible through multiple dhikr. Dhikr
(Arabic ‫ ذکر‬- remembrance) is an Islamic spiritual practice, which consists in
repeated recitation of a prayer formula containing the glorification of God.
Dhikr in Islam developed mainly as a meditative practice of Sufism.

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 Islam became widespread on the territory of Kazakhstan due to Sufism.
Khoja Ahmet Yassavi (1103-1166) was born in the city of Yassy
(Turkestan), his mother died early, and his father died when he was 7 years old.
His first teacher and educator was Arystanbab, who was his relative. After the
death of Arystanbab, 17-year-old Akhmet arrived in the city of Yassy. From this
age he began to write poetry in Arabic, Shagatai, Persian, Turkic, began to study
oriental poetry and literature. Then he studied at the madrasah of Imam Yusuf
Hamadani in the city of Bukhara. Over time, he became a sage known
throughout the Islamic world. From the age of 63 he imprisoned himself in a
dungeon and spent the rest of his life there, explaining it this way: “I have
reached the age of a prophet, I don’t need any longer. It is not worth living more
than the age of a prophet”. There is different information as to how many years
Ahmet Yassaui actually lived. According to some sources - 73 years, according
to others - 85 years.
His main work “Divani Hikmet” (“Book of Wisdom”) is written in the
Kipchak dialect of the ancient Turkic language. “Divani Hikmet” reveals the
basic rules and principles of Islam. Yassaui calls for piety, patience, obedience,
he convinces everyone of the truth of the words (hadith) of the prophet: “The
main fundamental of the concept of faith is consciousness”. Thus, he
encouraged people to become honest, kind, merciful. Khoja Akhmet determined
the direction of the spiritual development of the Turkic peoples in the new
Islamic civilization. In his teaching, he combined a new religious ideology with
Tengrism, with Zoroastrianism, and folk beliefs. Thanks to A. Yassaui,
Sufism as a philosophical system played a decisive role in the spiritual
understanding of the Turkic peoples.

13.4. CULTURE OF THE GOLDEN HORDE PERIOD.

The Golden Horde was one of the largest states of the Middle Ages,
whose possessions were in Europe and Asia. It was a Mongol-Tatar state
founded in the the 13th century by Khan Batu. The Golden Horde included
Western Siberia, Sevrny Khorezm, Volga Bulgaria, the North Caucasus, Crimea,
Desht-i-Kipchak.
In 1206 on the banks of the Central Asian River Onon, a kuriltai (congress)
of the steppe aristocracy gathered. The khan (supreme ruler) of the new Mongol
state was elected. In a long, fierce, insidious and sophisticated struggle,
Temujin (Genghis Khan) managed to unite the disparate and warring Mongol
nomadic tribes into a single state.
As a result, in the second half of the XIII century vast expanses from the
coast of the Pacific Ocean to the Danube came under the rule of the Genghisids.

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 Picture 42. Cities on the Great Silk Road.
In the Golden Horde there were about 150 cities of various sizes: Gulstan
(Country of Flowers), Saray (Palace), Saraichik (Small Palace), Ak-Saray
(White Palace), Ak-Kirmen (White Fortress), Ak-Meshit(White Mosque) ,
Ulug-Meshit(Great Mosque), Argamakly-Saray (Palace of swift horses)
(p.42).
The idea of urbanization began in early 50sof the XIII century. If Plano
Karpini, having traveled in 1245 - 1247, the entire Ulus Jochi from west to east
and back, did not meet a single city there, then Rubruk, who traveled only six
years later, saw the magnificent city of Saray, just rebuilt by Batu Khan.

Picture 43. Cities on the Great Silk Road.

At the same time, his son Sartak was also engaged in the construction of
cities and towns. Caravan routes from east to west with crossings on the Volga
and Don have already passed through Sarayand some other settlements (p.43).
The culture of the Golden Horde was syncretic, it was mixed from
numerous heterogeneous parts brought in by different peoples who made up the
population of the state.
The period of the Golden Horde was characterized by the formation of its
own architectural school, the highest achievement of which is the development
of mosaic and majolica architecture. Jewelry, ferrous and nonferrous
metallurgy, pottery, leather production, stone carving have reached a high level
of development.
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 The adoption of Islam gave a strong impetus for the development of
spiritual culture and, above all, enlightenment. The population were educating in
mektebs and madrassas. The development of enlightenment contributed to the
spread of the richest oriental poetry in the Golden Horde, among which were the
works of Ferdowsi, Rudaki, Omar Khayyam, Nizami, and others. Under the
influence of Persian-Tajik literature, the Golden Horde poetry was also
experiencing an upsurge. The XIV century was the flourishing period of
medieval Turkic literature. This period is represented by the names of such
major poets as Saif Sarayi (poems “Gulistan” and “Suhail and Guldursun”),
Kutbi (“Khosrov and Shirin”), Khorezmi (“Poem of Love”), Rabguzi (“Kissa-
i-Rabguzi“) and etc.
Some sciences (medicine, astronomy, geodesy) were developed in the
cities of the Golden Horde.

13.5. CULTURE OF THE TEMURID PERIOD.

The era of Amir Temur and the Temurids - XIV-XV centuries.

The spiritual heritage of this era is one of the brightest pages of world
history. The brilliant take-off of science, architecture, urban planning, fine and
applied arts, literature, poetry, music, and performing art is a unique
characteristic feature observed throughout the world which is not accidentally
defined as “Eastern Renaissance”.
Although Amir Temur followed the laws of Shria and the teachings of
Islam, but on the same side he encouraged secular culture and socio-economic
development. This policy led to a kind of phenomenon - a pronounced religious
principle and a highly developed secular culture coexisted in the state.
The role of Islam was expressed in the development of theology, religious
legislation, extensive construction of religious and cult buildings, the emergence
of many religious leaders.
Secularism, which arose during the reign of Amir Temur and subsequently
became an essential social and spiritual factor in the state of the Temurids,
expressed itself in the rapid development of natural (mathematics, astronomy,
medicine) and humanities (history, historiography) sciences, various types of
arts.
The culture and science of Maveranahr at this time gained their worldwide
popularity. There is growing interest in ancient culture, the early medieval
philosophical heritage of the peoples of Maverannahr, India, and Arab countries.
At this time, any knowledge was valued, especially if it could bring
practical benefits - medicine, astronomy, mathematics, but most of all Amir
Timur was interested in architecture. In his era, palaces, mosques, mausoleums,
country gardens, workshops, dukans, and city fortifications were erected.
In this era, caravan routes passed through the cities of Otrar, Tashkent,
Samarkand, Balkh, Herat. Now the whole flow of goods poured along the
roads passing through Maverannahr. From here came a stream of fabrics, glass,

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metal products. From India there was a road through the Hindu Kush, Balkh. It
was used to bring nutmeg, cloves, ginger and cinnamon. From the Kipchak
lands through the Syrdarya, furs, leather goods, canvas were brought. Along the
caravan route from the east, from the Yellow River, along the edge of the Tarim
Basin, the most expensive foreign goods were transported from China - silk,
precious stones, including agate and pearls, medicines and porcelain.
All caravan trade routes converged in Samarkand, the capital of the
empire(p.44). The city has become the crossroads of Asia, the center of the
continent.

Picture 44. Samarkand.

There was Ulugbek’s madrasah in Samarkand (1420). Another center of
scientific life was the observatory in Samarkand (1424), where scientists such
as Al-Kashi, Kazy-had Rumi, considered the issues of determining the
distances to the Moon and the Sun. In 1437, a group of scientists (including Al-
Kashi and Al-Kushchi) created a star atlas known as Gurgan Zij. In the field of
mathematics, the theory of decimal fractions is systematically presented,
equations are solved and Euclid’s Principles are studied.

Ulugbek Observatory is
one of the most significant
observatories of the Middle
Ages, built by Ulugbek on
Kuhak Hill in the vicinity of
Samarkand in 1424-1428(p.45).

Picture 45. Ulugbek Observatory.

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 Timurid Renaissance painting is represented primarily by Herat
miniatures. The inspiration for the artists’ circle was the grandson of Amir
Timur, the son of Shahrukh Baysonkur. Timurid artists illustrated such works as
Shahnameh, Khamsa, Kalila and Dimna. The bodies of people were depicted
as narrow and elongated, heads with round faces and almond-shaped eyes are
small and slightly tilted. Bright flowers coexist with bright (red, yellow, blue)
caftans of people and white turbans.
The most famous miniaturist painter of the Timurid state in Khorasan was
Behzad(p.46). In the miniatures of these manuscripts, Behzad manifests himself
as a master of landscape, and as a master of battle scenes, and as a master of
images of human figures and their individual characteristics. He owns many
artistic innovations.
Picture 46. Behzad.
Construction of the al-Havarnak
castle.Miniature."Khamsa" by
Nizami. 1495-1496 British
Library, London

The Timurid Renaissance in

literature is represented by the poetry of
Lutfi, Sayyid Ahmed, and also Alisher
Navoi, who wrote works in the Chagatai
language in the genre of gazelles and
rubai included in sofas. All-consuming
unrequited love (muhabbat) and moral
edification became the theme of poetry.
Historical narration (dastan) was often
clothed in poetic form.

14. FORMATION OF KAZAKH CULTURE

14.1. FORMATION OF KAZAKH TRADITIONAL CULTURE. EPIC
CULTURE OF KAZAKHS.MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF THE KAZAKH
PEOPLE.

By the foundation of Kazakh Khanate between 1456 and 1465, the identity
of Kazakhs became renowned and was even strongly shaped.
Material culture. Cattle breeding prevailed in the economy of the Kazakh
khanates. Therefore, the source of income and wealth was created mainly using
livestock and raw materials.In the south of Kazakhstan, agriculture developed
simultaneously with cattle breeding.

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 Dwellings adapted to nomadic life - yurt. The frame and felt for the outer
covering of such dwellings each family made themselves, and the production of
parts of the wooden frame of the yurt was carried out by the masters - uyshi.
In regions with a sedentary and semi-sedentary economy, permanent
dwellings were also built. For example, nomadic and semi-sedentary residents
of the suburbs of Otrar, Sauran, Sygnak and other large cities built permanent
dwellings. They lived in houses built of wood, clay and stone. In the winter
months they settled in them, and in warm times they lived in yurts.
Clothing was mainly made from wool, leather and animal skins. There
were different types of summer and winter clothing. So, in winter, men wore
warm tymaks - hats made of lambskin (animal skins), in summer - kalpaks made
of thin white felt.
One of the main indicators of material culture is food. The main food for
the herders was meat, milk, butter, kumis, shubat (a drink made from camel
milk). At the same time, the dishes were also prepared from flour, millet,
barley and wheat.
Handicrafts were very popular. For cattle breeding, horse harnesses,
kuruki (long poles for catching horses), lassoes, various types of leash were
needed: jelly (for horses) and kogenes (for sheep and goats), kisen (iron ties),
etc.
Spiritual culture. Spiritual culture includes customs and rituals,
traditions and oral folk art (legends, fairy tales, epics, myths), written
literature, music, religious beliefs, etc.
In this time the main compositions of oral literature of the tribes and clans
inhabiting the territory of Kazakhstan were passed down orally from generation
to generation.
The oldest folklore have a variety of mythological plots. For example,
about the origin of Space and the Earth from Chaos, about the origin of the Sun,
Moon and other heavenly bodies. Legends and myths “The Legend of the
Sun”, “Polar Star and the Big Bear” (“Temirkazyk pen Zheti Karakshy”) and
others talked about the appearance of the first people and animals, about the
emergence of mountains, rivers and lakes, and other natural objects.
The myth of “Temirkazyk pen Zheti Karakshy” - about seven stars
presented in the form of seven robbers. There are two stars near the Pole Star.
The Kazakh name for the Polar Star is Temir Kazyk (iron stake). Tied to
it are two stars "Ak boz at" (white horse) and "Kok boz at" (gray horse). The
robbers,would sneak up from different sides to steal the horses but the rising of
the sun led them to go into hiding.Each night the thieves would go out hunting
but end up failing.There was a belief during the ancient times that if the robbers
succeeded in kidnapping one of the horses, it would result in arriving of “Akyr
Zaman” (judgement day) (p.47).

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 Picture 47.Polar Star
and the Big Bear.

The most
widespread genre of
oral literature was fairy
tales. Among them are
“Kulamergen -
Zhoyamergen”, “Batyr
Zhelim who came out
of the ground”, “Er
Tostik”, “Kendebai
with a greyish horse”
and others of magical,
heroic and edifying
content. These tales
were of an educational nature.
One of the ancient genres of oral folklore areepic poems and legends. The
epic poem about Koblandy-batyr tells about the joint struggle of the Kypchaks
and Kyyats against the Kyzylbash and Kalmyks. And after the collapse of the
Golden Horde, epic works appeared in which the main characters were
batyrs(warrior) who defended their people, their native land from enemies.
Among them are the batyrs Er-Targyn, Orak, Mamai, Er-Kosai and others.
In the XIV-XV centuries, along with oral literature, written literature
began to develop. Among them are the unnamed “Kumanikus Codex” and
“Oguzname”. During this period, the poems “Mukhabbatnam” by the Uzbek
poet Khorezmi, “Khosrov and Shirin” by the Kypchak Qutba, “Zhusup-
Zlikha” by Durbek and other literary works were already known.
“Khosrov and Shirin” and “Zhusup-Zlikha”are the poems about love.
The “Kumanikus Codex”, which means “The Book of the Kypchaks”
(Kypchaks is the name of one of the tribesin) is a well-known written source of
the Kumanian (kypchak) language of the early XIV century. The
CodexCumanicus consists of two parts.
The first part of the “Code of Kumanikus” - dictionaries: Latin-Persian-
Kypchak and Kypchak-German.
The second part is a collection of various religious texts (Bible fragments,
sermons, aphorisms, religious instructions, prayers, etc.) and riddles.
The Codex Kumanikus was used as a dictionary of the Kypchak language
and was intended for Europeans who knew Latin and who came to the Golden
Horde for different purposes.
Musical accompaniment were used for the narration of legends, fairy tales
and epics. For quite a long time, musical knowledge was passed from teacher to
student orally, there was no musical notation in Kazakhstan. But it had its own

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rules and rhythm. The most famous instruments in Kazakhstan are Kobyz,
Dombra, Dabyl, Zhetygen. Kobyz is a bowed string instrument of unusual
shape. It is made from a single
piece of wood in which a
hemispherical resonator with two
compartments is hollowedout.
Kobyz strings are made from
horsehair.(p.48).
Kobyz possesses healing
power; in the hands of a skilled
musician, kobyz gains special
power over consciousness.

Picture 48. Kobyz.

Dombra is a stringed plucked instrument with a teardrop-shaped resonator
and two strings (p.49).

Picture 49.Dombra.

Picture 50. Dabyl.

Dabyl is a percussion instrument from the timpani class. It is a round
drum which is covered with leather on both of its sides. There was a time when
dabylwasb used to give various military and nomadic signals (p.50).
Zhetygen is a plucked instrument with seven strings. It is one of the oldest
instruments in today’s time and it is
often used as solo instrument in musical
works of Kazakh (p.51).
In the 15th-18th centuries, a unique
musical genre - kyui - originated on the
territory of Kazakhstan. This genre is a
performance of a piece of music on a
dombra with a special tonality and
rhythm.
Picture 51. Zhetygen.

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 14.2. TRADITIONS, RITUALS, CUSTOMS OF THE KAZAKH
PEOPLE.

The culture of the Kazakhs until the twentieth century remained nomadic,
passed a difficult and interesting path of development. Nomadic Kazakhs have
developed their own way of thinking and social organization, which is a
synthesis of cognitive forms of the West and the East. As a result of this
confusion, traditions, rituals and customs received the greatest development.
Since life and well-being depended on endurance, strength, dexterity and
ingenuity, special attention in the steppe was paid to instilling these qualities in
children from early childhood. Therefore, many Kazakh rituals are somehow
associated with the birth, childhood, youth and adulthood of a young man. For
example, at the shildekhana - a celebration of the birth of a child, wealthy
people made generous treats with the invitation of residents not only of their
own, but also of neighboring villages, they organized competitions of singers,
competitions on horses. The child was often named after a person revered in the
village. There were also cases when they gave the child the first name that came
across, not even noticeable, so that he would grow up out of sight healthy and
strong.
As special stages on the way to adulthood, the Kazakh family noted such
events as besikke salu - laying a newborn in a cradle, with a hint that he would
grow quickly and gain good health; tusau kesu - the first steps of a child so
that he can walk and run fast. On this day, according to Kazakh custom, it was
customary to call the oldest and most respected person to the house where the
baby took his first step, so that he would cut the special ropes that entangled the
child’s legs with a knife. Atka otyrgyzu - is putting a child on a horse with the
handing over not only whips, but also spears, so that the heir can ride a horse,
know how to throw spears better than anyone else, far and accurately. Then
followed the rite of circumcision. A mullah or a doctor circumcises a 5-7 year
old son, after which the doctor generously rewarded by the child’s parents.
Then, according to custom, they should make a toy - a holiday, a celebration.
Many guests, relatives from neighboring villages are called, who in turn make
gifts to the child and his parents.
Games and festivals have been of great social importance at all times. They
arose in distant antiquity, in their development they went through a series of
successive forms that corresponded to social relations and economic activities of
the people. Games and entertainment performed such functions as educational,
military-sports, ritual, spectacular-aesthetic, communicative, etc. A wide and
universal function was performed by military-sports games associated both with
military life (wars, raids, clashes), and economic activities of the company.
Such games were sayis, alaman baiga, kokpar, audaryspak, zhamby atu, horse
races, kures, etc. Some of the games and entertainment carried ritual and

104
ceremonial functions included in the system of memorial and funeral
ceremonies, as well as marriage.
Folk celebrations (meiram, toy, as) and games were dedicated to
significant events. The biggest holiday was considered a funeral feast with horse
racing. It is known that the commemoration (as), that was arranged in honor of
the oldest in the family, attracted as many as 15 thousand people, regardless of
rank.The celebration lasted from 3 to 7 days, depending on the financial
situation of the organizers. At the same time, some games, competitions were
held every day, and the final day ended with a grandiose jump, which was the
glory of the commemoration. Weddings were significant among family and
family celebrations. The celebration began with a general meal. Here you can
hear wedding songs and aitys (song competitions) of famous akyns (bards), see
and participate in games and comic entertainment. Only the entertainment
program during the wedding party included many games, where the main
entertainment was horse racing (baiga), which often involved very significant
prizes. The event associated with the birth of a son was of the same solemn
character, often going beyond the purely family joy. It was a holiday dedicated
to the birth of a child (shildekana), a holiday on the occasion of placing a child
in a cradle (besyk toy), a celebration of the 40th birthday of a child (kyrkynan
shygaru), a holiday associated with the Muslim rite of circumcision of boys
aged three to ten (Sundet toy). Each holiday had its own background.
The worship of the horse and the love of horse games have become a
tradition that has survived to this day.
Alaman baiga - long and super-long distance race (25, 50, 100 km), is one
of the ancient and popular competitions. Its origin is associated with a nomadic
life, the need to prepare horses for long transitions, especially in wartime.
Competitions were held in the steppe in a straight line, replete with natural
barriers, without limiting the number of horses and their breed. As the riders
approached the finish line, they shouted clans (uranium), by which the viewer
recognized the winners of the race. Baiga was held at all holidays and was
accessible to everyone.
Zharga darys - a pacer competition. The distance was set in a straight line
under natural conditions from 2 to 10 km. Amble was hereditary, and such
horses were highly valued for their natural softness and rhythmic gait.
Sometimes the ability of a pacer was developed in a horse of an early age, if
they had the makings. This was done by special masters (zhorgashi).
Sayis - a solitary battle of pinnacle horsemen is an old paramilitary game,
coordinated uniquely at particularly huge festivals. Contenders for a duel were
displayed from various tribes or between adjoining people groups, for example,
among Kazakhs and Kyrgyz in southern Kazakhstan. Members were furnished
with the vital gear, outfitted with long wooden lances with a dull end. The
objective of the duel is to take the rival out of the seat or dispense a hefty blow
on him so he can’t proceed with the battle.

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 Audaryspak - horse fighting in order to throw an opponent out of the
saddle. Only mature men with great physical strength, dexterity, endurance and
skillful handling of a horse took part. Usually such masters were exhibited in
competitions from the whole village and clan.
Zhamby atu - shooting with a bow or rifle at full gallop at a target. Its
origin is associated with military applied art, which survived until the 18th
century.
Kumys alu, one of the peculiar national sports, found among the peoples
of Central Asia, Kazakhstan, the Caucasus, requiring the participants to have the
utmost speed, agility, skillful and courageous horse control. The idea of the
game is for the rider at full gallop to pick up a coin placed on the ground, and
sometimes several coins located in the same interval.
Wrestling -was well known among the individuals, an assortment of
which was additionally found among different people groups of Central Asia.
Kazaksha kures was held at all celebrations and took after free-form wrestling,
in any case, without weight classifications. An unmistakable element of
kazaksha kures is the nonattendance of wrestling in the ground and it is
performed uniquely on belts and standing.
Kyz kuu (catch up with the girl) is an equestrian game that returns to old
occasions, when young ladies were warriors and riders. As indicated by the
particulars of the game, the young lady should hit the horseman with a whip and
begin dashing to be the first to leap to the turning post, and the horseman - to to
catch up with her. In the event that the horseman caught up with her to the
turning line, at that point, as a champ, he reserved the option to embrace and kiss
the young lady. In the event that he didn’t catch up with the young lady, at that
point in transit back, induced by the crowd, she caught up with the awkward
horseman and exacted various blows with a whip. Such disappointments were a
disgrace on the rider, it took a long effort to be overlooked it.
Alty bakan (literally “six pillars”) - Kazakh swing, were built of six
pillars, the ends of which were tied with a strong rope, a transverse pole was
installed on top, where paired lassoes for legs and seats were fixed. Alty Bakan
occurred at night. The young lady and the guys were swinging on a swing and at
the same time they had to start some kind of funny song, the others picked it up,
played the dombra. Couples followed each other.
Ak suek (white bone) - an engaging youth game, occurred on a twilight
evening, with the interest of youngsters from an adjoining town. A white bone is
taken as a device, consequently the situation. Members structure two gatherings
drove by their chiefs, and a delegate of one of them tosses a dice quite far by
part, while the rest dismiss right now. At that point, at the sign, everybody goes
to search for ak suek. The person who found the principal bone discreetly tells
his group and, taking cover behind them, attempts to rapidly get to the beginning
position. On the off chance that he effectively arrives at the spot, at that point
the agents of the crushed group engage the victors as pay, regularly with a tune.

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 14.3. NATIONAL, PUBLIK HOLIDAYS, FESTIVAL DAYS OF
KAZAKHSTAN.

Kazakhstan is a large multinational country, it has old traditions and new

ones acquired over the years of independence.
National and public holidays are celebrated in Kazakhstan. National
holidays are holidays established in the Republic of Kazakhstan to
commemorate events of particular historical significance that have had a great
impact on the development of Kazakhstani statehood. Celebration of national
holidays is accompanied by official events in central and local government
agencies.
Public holidays - holidays dedicated to events of social and political
significance, as well as traditionally celebrated by citizens of the Republic of
Kazakhstan. Public holidays may be accompanied by official events.
National holiday in the Republic of Kazakhstan - Independence Day on
December 16, which is celebrated on December 16-17.
Public holidays in the Republic of Kazakhstan are holidays that are
celebrated on the following days:
New Year - January 1-2;
International Women’s Day - 8 March;
Nauryz meiramy - March 22;
Holiday of the Unity of the People of Kazakhstan - May 1;
Victory Day - May 9;
Capital Day - July 6;
Constitution Day of the Republic of Kazakhstan - August 30;
December 16 - the Day of State Independence of the Republic of
Kazakhstan is the main state holiday. On December 16, 1991, the Supreme
Council adopted a law on the independence and state sovereignty of Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan is a member of international and regional organizations and is
known as a reliable partner of both Western and Eastern states.
Nauryz Meiramy is a holiday of spring renewal in Kazakhstan. It arose
among the peoples of the East long before the adoption of Islam. According to
the eastern calendar, Nauryz is the beginning of the new year, coinciding with
the vernal equinox. The modern Kazakh name for the New Year - Nauryz
comes from the Persian language: nau - new, ruz - day.
This is the most important and ancient festival of the Eastern peoples. In
fact, this is the New Year according to the ancient Eastern calendar. It also has
another name, Ulys Kuny (“The First Day of the New Year”) or Ulystyn Uly
Kuny (“The Great Day of the People”). It is believed that a generous celebration
of Nauryz will bring abundance and success to home for a whole year. These
beliefs explain the abundance of holiday rituals and customs. With the arrival of
the holiday, Kazakhs dress in festive clothes, visit each other and exchange
congratulations and wishes for well-being in the coming year. Celebrations are
accompanied by widespread fun, games, horse racing and other amusements.

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The main ritual dish of this holiday is nauryz-kozhe, which should consist of 7
ingredients that symbolize the 7 elements of life: water, meat, salt, fat, flour,
cereals (rice, corn or wheat) and milk.They symbolized happiness, luck,
wisdom, health, wealth, rapid growth, the protection of heaven. If milk is a
symbol of the new year, then the old one personifies meat, and smoked meats
that make up last year’s supplies are mandatory. Everyone should visit seven
houses, and receive seven guests at home.
May 1 - Holiday of the Unity of the People of Kazakhstan. On this day,
festive events are always held to unite all the peoples living in the Republic,
because Kazakhstan is a multinational state. More than one hundred and fifty
nationalities live in it.
Constitution Day 30 August. The Constitution of the Republic, the main
law of the country reflects the will of the people of Kazakhstan, their desire to
establish the country as a democratic, secular, legal and social state, the highest
values of which are a person, his life, rights and freedoms.
The Day of the First President on December 1 was established to
celebrate and recognize the outstanding services of the first President of
Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev to the Republic. On December 1, 1991, as
a result of the first national elections, Nursultan Abishevich Nazarbayev was re-
elected to the post of President of the Kazakh SSR.

14.4. NATIONAL MUSEUM-RESERVE PROJECT

In the twentieth century, many states realized the need in the revival of the
historic highway, as ways of dialogue and cooperation. In 1988 the was adopted
UNESCO project “Integral study of the Silk Road - the path of dialogue”,
and in 1993 the UN General Assembly adoptedthe decision to revive the Great
Silkways as an important channel of international cooperation in the field of
diplomacy, culture,science, trade, tourism.
The Silk Road is rich in material and cultural heritage. In order to preserve
it in 2014 at the 38th session of the Committee of the UNESCO was approved
application on the inclusion the Silk Road in the World Heritage List. World
Heritage Site UNESCO included 33 historical monuments on Silk Road, eight of
which are in Kazakhstan.Today in Kazakhstan there are 12 republican and 2
regional reserves of the museum. Of the 12 republican nature reserves, 8 are
located on the Silk Road routes.
Tanbaly Museum-Reserve.
Located 180 kilometers from Almaty in the Tanbaly tract (or Tamgaly - as
the name of this place sounds in the international interpretation), the historical
and archaeological complex has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since
2004.
There are ancient places of worship, a sanctuary, burial grounds and about
5,000 rock carvings. Ritual ceremonies were held here, people prayed to the

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gods and spirits for over 2,000 years. The most interesting thing here is
petroglyphs, or rock carvings.

Picture 52.Tanbaly’s petroglyphs.

Petroglyphs are ancient images carved or painted on rocks, walls or
ceilings of caves, as well as on rocks and exposed rock surfaces(p.52). Derived
from the Greek: pétros - stone and glyphé - carving.
The earliest of Tanbaly’s petroglyphs, according to researchers, were
made in the Bronze Age, starting from the XIV century BC, young drawings
date back to about VI-VIII centuries, the time of the settlement of the Great
Steppe by Turkic peoples(p.53).

Picture 53.Tanbaly’s petroglyphs.

Historical and Cultural Reserve-Museum “Azret-Sultan”.(p.54, 55).
The State Historical and Cultural Reserve-Museum “Azret-Sultan” is a
museum-reserve in the city of Turkestan. The central object of the Azret-Sultan
reserve-museum is the mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasavi - the first
monument of Kazakhstan, included on July 5, 2003 in the list of UNESCO
World Heritage Sites (p.54).

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 he reserve-museum includes: the settlement of Kultobe (IV-VI c.), The Sufi
center (X-XII c.), a khanaka (( XIV century, built at the direction of Emir
Timur), the eastern bathhouse (XVI century), the mausoleums of Rabiga Sultan
Begim (XV century) (p.55), Yesim Khan, Abylai Khan, Zholbarys, Kasym
Khan, Zhanibek Batyr, Kazybek biy and others, Zhuma-mosque (XIX century),
medieval buildings of the citadel and shakhristan, fortifications with defensive
walls, towers, gates, military barracks, underground mosque Aulie Kumshyk ata,
mausoleums of Al-Khoja ata and Gaukhaana.

Picture 54. Mausoleum-mosque of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi

Picture 55. Mausoleum of Rabiga Sultan Begim

National Historical, Cultural and Natural Reserve-Museum “Ulytau”

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 Picture56. Ulytau reserve-museum.
The Ulytau reserve-museum was established in 1990(p.56). On the
territory of the reserve-museum there are 25 complexes. The museum funds
contain rare and original items that demonstrate the development of cultural
communities that lived in the Eurasian steppe for millennia.
On the territory of the reserve-museum there are such famous monuments
as Alashakhan, Zhoshykhan, Terekti-aulie, rock paintings of Baikonur,
Baskamyr and many other objects of various historical eras. Among the local
population, the ancient traditions of horse breeding are still preserved, folk crafts
and folklore are widespread.
Reserve-Museum “Bozok”

Picture 57.Settlement Bozok.

The medieval settlement Bozok was discovered in 1998 southwest of
Nur-Sultan(p.57).
In the VIII-X centuries Bozok was a fortress city and a cult sanctuary of the
ancient Turks. Subsequently, it became the residence of the Kypchak ruler; in
the Muslim era, it turned into a religious center and a geographical landmark in
the steppe for travelers and caravans.
The museum has a complex of dwellings of earthen type. The settlement
consisted of four dwellings. Small rectangular from 2 to 4 rooms (17-20 sq. M.)
Dwellings were connected by one narrow corridor. The entrance-tambour went
out to the shore of the lake.
In the largest dwelling, consisting of four rooms for better thermal
insulation in the first room, there was a large stove, the heat from which created
a thermal “cushion” and did not allow cold air to enter the house. This
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arrangement of the stove in dwellings played the role of modern air conditioners
located at the entrance to large buildings, which create a thermal boundary that
protects against the penetration of cold air.
The dwellings examined date back to the late 13th - mid-14th centuries.
The State Historical and Cultural Reserve-Museum “Issyk”

Picture 58.Golden man.

The State Historical and Cultural Reserve-Museum “Issyk” was
established in 2010(p.58). The museum-reserve is located on the territory of the
burial of the Issyk village. In 1970, in one of the burials (mounds) during
excavations, an intact burial of the Sakzs king was discovered. During the
creation of the national symbols of the Republic of Kazakhstan, elements of
decoration of the “Golden Man” clothing were used. The fund of the museum-
reserve has about 3 thousand items, consisting mainly of archaeological
collections.The exposition of the museum-reserve “Issyk” consists of 4 halls and
its main focus is “Saks era: Golden man”.

15. KAZAKH CULTURE AT THE TURN OF THE 18TH - LATE

19TH CENTURIES
KAZAKH CULTURE OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.
15.1. KAZAKH CULTURE AT THE TURN OF THE 18TH - LATE
19TH CENTURIES
In the 18th century, the culture of Kazakhstan preserved all the traditions
inherent in the medieval nomadic formations of Eurasia. Since the middle of the
18th century, we have already observed other features: in particular, the
Kazakhs were interested in the construction of stationary dwellings (kystau).
The Russian government, in order to attract the Kazakhs, began to build
permanent dwellings and economic structures for famous khans, sultans, rulers
(biys) and warriors (batyrs). During the reign of Catherine II, numerous
mosques appeared. The crisis of nomadic cattle breeding increased the poverty
of the Kazakhs, forced them to lead a sedentary lifestyle.
In the 18th century, tolgau songs were especially popular, the authors of
which were famous zhyrau - Bukhar zhyrau, Umbetey, Aktamberdy,
Tattikara, etc. Zhyrau is not only a singer-improviser, but also a spokesman for
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the interests of ordinary community members, free nomads. The title of
zhyrauoftenassociated with political activity.Tolgau songs are full of
philosophical reflections on the meaning of life, the harmony of the world.
The formation of general ethnic identity is associated with the most
difficult political events of the 18th century.

15.2. The phenomenon of the Kazakh Enlightenment

In the conditions when Kazakhstan became the target of the interests of

Russia, England, France and other states, the trade and industrial development of
the region noticeably increased.
The most enlightened representatives of the people took on the mission of
great teachers, with their knowledge they contributed to the development of the
region. There were no schools in the Kazakh steppes for a very long time.
Almost until the middle of the 19th century, children were taught in madrasah, it
was religious education.Literacy was very low.

Picture 59.Ybyrai Altynsarin.

Ybyrai Altynsarin (1841-1889) made a great contribution to the
Enlightenment of the Kazakh people (p.59). Ybyrai Altynsarin entered the
history of public thought and literature of Kazakhstan as a remarkable educator,
writer, folklorist and ethnographer.He was born in the Arakaragai Volost (now
the Altynsarin district of the Kostanay region). His father Altynsary Balgozhin
died when Ybyrai was not even four years old. The boy was brought up in the
house of his grandfather, the famous biy Balgozha Zhanburchin. Balgozha at
that time was one of the most authoritative biys in the entire Middle Horde and
enjoyed great influence among the ruling elite of the Kazakh society.
In 1850 the first special school for Kazakh children was opened in
Orenburg (the administrative center of the Turgai region) and in this school
Ybyray studied. Gifted, lively and diligent, he from the very first days of school
life stood out among his peers. Teachers immediately drew attention to the
gifted boy, who diligently perceived everything that they explained, deeply
delving into each subject studied.

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 In 1857, Ybyrai Altynsarin graduated from high school and he was entered
as interpreter of the Orenburg province Administration.
In 1860, the regional government commissioned him to open an elementary
school for Kazakh children in the Orenburg fortification (Turgai), in which he
was appointed a teacher of the Russian language. It was not easy to open a
school in a remote town: there was no money, no support from the regional
government and local authorities.
January 8, 1864 the grand opening of the school. So began the educational
activities of Altynsarin. In 1879, Altynsarin was appointed to the position of
school inspector of the Turgai region. In this post he worked for the rest of his
life.
A number of popular secular schools wasinitiated by him in Kazakhstan.
This is outstanding historical merit of Altynsarin. During his life, he managed to
open four two-year central Russian-Kyrgyz schools, one vocational school, one
girls’ school, five regional schools and two colleges for Russian rural children.
Altynsarin developed didactic principles for teaching and educating
children, wrote educational and methodological tutorials, regularly carried out
inspectoral control, visited every school, took care of creating a library for each
school.
About three years he spent on the development of the Kazakh alphabet on
the basis of Russian graphics. Even before the appointment to the position of
school inspector of the Turgai region, Altynsarin started compiling teaching aids
for students of Russian-Kazakh schools. In 1879 two textbooks “The Kyrgyz
Reader”, “The Initial Guide to Teaching Kirghiz to the Russian Language”
were published.

Picture 60.ShokanUalikhanov.
Shokan Ualikhanov (1835-1865) was an outstanding Kazakh scientist-
orientalist, a historian, an ethnographer, a geographer, a folklorist, a translator
and a traveler(p.60). He was born in 1835 in the Kushmurun area not far from
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Kostanai. Shokan’s childhood passed at the family estate of grandmother
Aiganym in Syrymbet. The father of Shokan was Shyngys, the agha-sultan
(ruler of the administrative-territorial district in the Kazakh steppes during the
tsarist period, to replace the khan’s power), his grandfather’s name was
Ualikhan. The great-grandfather of Shokan was Khan Abylai. At the age of
twelve, Shokan enrolled to study at the Siberian Cadet Corps in Omsk.
In 1853, Shokan graduated from the Cadet Corps at the rank of cornet and
joined as Adjutant of General-Governor of Steppes G. Gasfort. Young and
precocious and educated Kazakh was seen by Russian intellectuals, by fate
living in Omsk, writers and poets A. Mikov, F. Dostoevsky, V. Kurochkin, an
orientalist K. Gutkovskii and others. In the service of the Governor-General,
Shokan studied history, ethnography, literature, and culture of the people of
Central Asia, traveled to Central Kazakhstan, Zhetysu, Tarbagatai, collected
materials and wrote articles on the history of the steppe, the customs and
traditions, religion of Kazakhs.
In the years 1856-57, Sh. Ualikhanov made research and ethnographic
expedition to Kuldzha, where he became acquainted with the history of
Dzhungaria. In these visits, he wrote the famous “Essays of Dzhungaria»,
«Notes about Kirghizs». «On the genres of Kazakh Folk Poetry», «Diary of a
trip to Issyk-Kul», «Legends of Kirghiz-Kaisak Orda» and other works, which
have become a basis of a radically new view of the Kazakh people, their culture
and literature.
These sketches and articles have been highly appreciated by Russian
scientists. In 1857, Shokan became a full member of the Russian Geographical
Society. In 1858-1859, he has made the most important thing in his short life
journey to Kashgar. Under the name of the merchant Alimbay, having shaved
his head and changed appearance, Shokan entered in Kashgar with travellers,
where he has lived for five months.
He brought from Kashgar many interesting statistical and historical data
that have been published in the «Memoirs of the Russian Geographical Society»
in two articles: «Essays of Dzhungaria» and «Description of Kashgar or
Altyshaar». Over the short life, Shokan was able to write important works. His
literary and scientific work consists of five volumes of bulk.
Abai Kunanbayev (1845-1904) is afamous poet, composer, philosopher,
thinker, educator-democrat, the founder of the new Kazakh realistic
literature(p.61).
Abai (Ibragim) Kunanbayev was born in 1845 in the Semipalatinsk region.
Akyns and storytellers brought up in him a sincere love for his native people,
their history and rich cultural heritage. From his mother he inherited a kind
heart, in which resentment against violence and evil grew every day. Given by
his father to the Semipalatinsk madrasah, Abai, sought to learn Russian. His
teaching in the Russian parish school lasted only three months.

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 At the insistence of his father, thirteen-
year-old Abai returned home to participate in
the political life of the Steppe. He studied the
works of the classics of Russian and Western
European literature, met the progressive
Russian people exiled by the tsarist government
to Semipalatinsk.
Pushkin and Lermontov were Abai’s
favorite poets. He was inspired by the
truthfulness, high craftsmanship, life-affirming
power of their works. Abai sought to acquaint
the Kazakhs with the work of these great
Russian poets, and in the 80s of the XIX
century began to translate excerpts from the
novel by Alexander Pushkin “Eugene Onegin”
and poems by M. Yu. Lermontov.
Picture 61.Abai Kunanbayev.
The study of Russian classical literature ideologically and artistically had
enriched the Kazakh poet, he was inspired by educational and aesthetic ideas.
But at the same time, Abai’s work remains original, distinctive, he is a
deeply national poet and philosopher. The life of the Kazakh people was the
subject of his poetic descriptions and philosophical reasoning. He deeply,
truthfully and vividly described the life, customs and character of the Kazakhs.
Abai was the founder of written Kazakh literature. Before him, most
Kazakh poetry was oral, echoing the nomadic habits of the people of the Kazakh
steppes.
For the first time in Kazakh literature he created poetic works about the
purpose of the poet and poetry (“Poetry is the ruler of the language”). He
combined elements of landscape, love lyrics with philosophical generalizations
and educational and humanistic ideas. Many poems are written in the form of
lyrical monologues (“Aittym salem, Kalamkas” - “I send greetings to you,
Kalamkas - fine-browed”).In the poem “Kazimnin karasy” (“You are the pupil
of my eyes”), “Kyzaryp, sұrlanyp” (“And blush and turn pale”), “Kashyktyk
tili - tilsiz til” (“The language of love is a language without words”) shown the
power of love, the beauty of a lady.
In 1887 he wrote the poems “Iskander”, “Masgud”, “The Legend of
Azim”. Their plots are based on the reinterpreted motives of oriental classical
literature.
Abay’s major work is The Book of Words (Qara sózderi), a philosophic
treatise and collection of poems where he encourages his fellow Kazakhs to
embrace education, literacy, and good moral character in order to escape
poverty, enslavement and corruption. The content of the book consists of 45
“Words”. These covenants played an important role in introducing young
people to the spiritual sources of folk wisdom. The central idea of the Words is

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the belief in humanistic ideals, in the boundless possibilities of the native
people.

15.3. MUSICAL CREATIVITY OF KURMANGAZY, TATTIMBET,

ZHAYAU MUSSA.

In the second half of the 19th century outstanding Kazakh composers lived,
who created unfading classical works.

Picture 62.Kurmangazy.
Kurmangazy Sagyrbai-uly (1818-1889) - a genius kyuishi composer, a
classic of Kazakh instrumental music(p.62).
Kurmangazy – a great musician, dombra player, composer, and a central
figure in the Kazakh music heritage. He was born in Western Kazakhstan to a
family of a poor nomad. Dire poverty forced him to become a shepherd at the
age of 6. His early interest in music was disapproved by his father. His mother,
on the contrary, supported the interest. The boy listened to visiting dombra
performers with great engagement. One of them – called Uzak – spotted the boy
and predicted his bright future. At the age of 18, Kurmangazy left home to
become a roving performer. He participated in multiple contests and developed
his skill to the level of a recognized master.
In the 1830s he witnessed the Isatai and Makhambet-led insurrection
and devoted one of his early pieces to it. The following pieces reflected people’s
pursuit of freedom and their fight against the injustice. Liberation and freedom
turned into the core ideas of his works. As a result, he was frequently pursued
by the authorities and prosecuted to imprisonment. There he composed his
masterpieces Alatau and Sary Arka -- both reflecting his deep reflections on
independence.
Kuis of Kurmangazy are very diverse in content. Experts distinguish
several groups: Cuis, which convey the mood or impression of the composer:
“Balbyrauyn” (“Honey mood”), “Adai”, “Machine” and a number of others.
Works dedicated to historical events: “Kishkentai” (“The Little One”) tells
about the uprising of Mukhambet Utemisov and Istay Taimanov in the 30s of
the 19th century on the territory of the Bukeev Horde, where the composer was
from. “Kobik shashkan” (“Raging Wall”) tells about the flood of 1879 in the
Primorsky District, witnessed by Kurmangazy. Autobiographical cuis:“Erten
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ketem” (“I’m leaving tomorrow”), “Pabeske” (“Agenda”), “Turmeden
kashkan” (“Prison break”) describe some events in his the life. Kurmangazy
dedicated several works to Alka, his mother, who supported him in difficult
moments of his life: “Kairan sheshem” (“Oh, my mother!”),“Aman bol,
sheshem, aman bol!”(“Be well, my mother, be well”).
Tattimbet Kazangap-uly (1815-1862) is an outstanding kyuishi-composer
of the Kazakh people, one of the founders of classical dombra music of the 19th
century, author and performer of kyuis of the shertpe style.
Tattimbet was born in a noble family belonging to the Argyn tribe, the
Karakesek clan. His passion for music was combined in his life with
administrative activities. He was descendant of Bertis Khan. Among his
ancestors is the famous Kazybek bi. Father Kazangap had a high military rank in
the tsarist army. And Tattimbet himself was an officer in the Russian army. He
distinguished by exquisite clothing, and drove his horses in a rich headdress.
There is a legend that Tattimbet had a horse Bozzorga, whom he taught to dance
to the sounds of dombra. When he played his kyui “Kara Zhorga” (“Black
pacer”), Bozzhorga walked to the rhythm of the kyui - sometimes with a step,
sometimes with an amble, sometimes with accelerating movements.
Tattimbet is a vivid representative of the dombra style“shertpe” - a special,
“silky” and quivering sound is produced not by hitting the strings with the whole
brush (energetic West Kazakhstan school “tokpe” - Kurmangazy, Dauletkerey,
Makhambet), but by shertpe - by a plucked technique, graceful busting fingers.
Tattimbet composed classic examples of traditional kyuis: “Kosbasar”,
“Terikkakpay”, “Balbyrauyn”, “Boz aigyr”, “Boz torgai”, “Alshagyr” and
others. Kui Tattimbeta “Sarzhaylau”, “Sylkyldyk”, “Balkyldak,”“Kekey-
kesti”are among the best works of Kazakh instrumental music. In the kyu “Bes
tora” the power of people who rise above the people is condemned. In 1855
Tattimbet traveled to St. Petersburg, where he played the dombra. More than 30
kuis of Tattimbet have survived. Outstanding composers Ykylas, Toka (1830-
1914) were his followers.
Zhayau Musa - Kazakh folk composer, akyn, poet-publicist. Born and
grown up near Lake Zhasybai in Bayanaul, Pavlodar region. The boy grew up
without a mother, having lost her in early childhood. He was brought up by his
uncle. From a young age, Musa taught to play the dombra, knew many singers
and kuishi. Being a gifted young man, he perfectly mastered the art of playing
the kobyz, dombra, violin, and syrnai.
From childhood Musa Baizhanuly learned to read from the aul mullah, but
he realized that this was far from perfection. Together with the people passing
through their aul, he reached the city of Kyzylzhar in search of a big life. Life in
the city made a strong impression on him. In 3 years he mastered Arabic and
Russian letters. Musa devoted a lot of time to reading newspapers, magazines, as
well as books by Russian writers and poets. Attending various entertainment
evenings, Musa was able to get acquainted with Russian and Tatar musical
traditions.

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 The local wealthy and the nobility hurt him. Especially their pride was hurt
by the fact that Musa, the son of some unworthy person like Baizhan, behaved
independently, knew languages. They have tried in every way to humiliate such
upstarts before. Now they decided to drop Musa’s authority before everyone. At
that time, Musa and Mustafa, two sons of a famous person named Shorman,
were in power in Bayanaul. Musa Baizhanuly had a single, but good horse.
Mustafa took Musa’s horse away with the words: “Don’t be in one village two
with the same name Musa. From now on, your name will be “Zhayau Musa” (ie,
Musa on foot).
In response to this humiliation Musa created his most famous song “Ak
sisa” (“White chintz”). In it, the poet narrates in verse about what happened and
makes fun of the vile actions of the local feudal wealthy.
Shokan Ualikhanov closely communicated with the poet, everywhere he
took Zhayau Musa with him, who was his age, and whose education he admired.
The unique songs of Zhayau Musa are distinguished by the fact that the
motives of Tatar and Russian melodies are also heard in them. Such are the
songs “Tolgau”, “The Cry of a Prisoner”, “Girls of Kazan” and many others.

15.4. The “ZarZaman” phenomenon in Kazakh culture

Zar zaman (the Age of Sorrow) - the period of liquidation of the khan’s
power by the tsarist government in the 19th century. In connection with the
abolition of the khan’s power, the main foundations on which the traditional
Kazakh society was held were lost. It was named after the song-tolgau “Zar
zaman” by akyn Shortanbai Kanayuly.
Later, the literary movement “Zar Zaman” emerged, which was reflected
in the works of Dulat Babatayuly, Shortanbai Kanayuly, Murat Monkeuly,
Abubakir Kerderi and others. The main theme of their work is a protest against
the economic, political, cultural, colonization of the Kazakh steppe by the
Russian Empire. Their works reflected the objectively existing deterioration of
the situation of the people, aggravated by the deprivation of vast pastures and
fertile lands, atrocities, violence and bribery on the part of officials, the decline
of ethical values, a departure from the canons of Islam, etc.All of them were
same in a decadent mood: grief about the past, fear of the future. At the same
time, they strove for the realism, reliability and concreteness of psychological
images and made a certain contribution to the development of the Kazakh
literary language.
Representatives of the poetry Zar Zaman contributed to the definition of
such cognitive concepts as “destiny”, “national character”, “world outlook of
the people”, “national self-perception”.
The core idea in the works of the poets Zar Zaman is the idea of the
integrity of the people and the state, and the dominant concepts are “unity” -
“birlik”, “state-nation” - “el”. They see in the implementation of this idea the
preservation of the mentality of the Kazakhs, which means the preservation of

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the Kazakhs as a people and nation. The main motive of the poetry of this
period, which sounds like an alarm, is expressed in such words ....“biz birlik-
berekeden aiyrylyp baramyz, byte bersek urimyz (“... we are going to the loss of
unity, if it continues like this, the people will disappear...”).
Monkeuly Murat (1843–1906) - akyn (poet), zhyrau. Born in the village
of Karabau, Kyzylkoginsky district, Atyrau region. He was left an orphan early
and was brought up by his brother Matai.
He received his primary education from the aul mullah, who taught Murat
to read Arabic. From early childhood, Monkeuly began to compose poetry, and
soon he was nicknamed “akyn boy”.
In 1860 Murat Monkeuly begins to participate in aitys (song competitions).
He created many songs, tolgau and dedications, in which he turned to
history, glorified love for his native land. In the songs-tolgau “Zhalkanshy funi
zhaganda” (“In deceitful time, brand”), “Әtten kapy dynie-ai” (“O world, vain,
fleeting”), “Olim” (“Death”) and in other works sings a brave horseman, a girl-
bride and hunting with a hawk, speaks of the transience of life, of the variability
of the mortal world.
Monkeuly Murat used the style of book poetry in his works. “Ush Kiyan”
is one of the significant works in which the akyn describes the plight of the
people, his doubts, dreams and hopes. In the tolgau “Saryarka” calls on
Kazakhs to overcome tribal alienation, sweep away all the remnants of the past
on the path of theirdevelopment . The poems “Karasai-Kazi” and “Kaztukan”
are dedicated to Kazakh batyrs, highlighting historical events from the past of
the Kazakh people. These works are dedicated to the batyrs, whom the author
shows as ardent patriots of his people, brave and courageous defenders of his
native land.
Abubakir (Kerderi) Borankululy (1861 -1912) - Kazakh akyn,
poet.Abubakir Borankululy was born in 1861 on the territory of the West
Kazakhstan region. He was an educated person, for some time he served as a
clerk for the local authorities. In his work, Kerderi Abubakir promoted simple
human values, actively described the fair life that was boiling in these places at
that time, mentioned the role of education, science and art in the life of Kazakhs.
Kerderi Abubakir studied in schools and madrassas in Orenburg and Troitsk,
and then he taught children in settlements near Sol-Iletsk, Uralsk, Aktobe, Orsk
and Orenburg.
Collections of his poems were published twice in Kazan in tsarist times and
were widely known in Kazakhstan and Central Asia.

15.5. KAZAKH SOCIAL THOUGHT AND MAIN DIRECTIONS IN

KAZAKH LITERATURE AT THE TURN OF THE XIX-XX
CENTURIES.

At the turn of the 19-20 century, the culture of Kazakhstan was associated
with the socio-political situation.

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 In the colonial outskirts of Kazakhstan, there were few enlightened
educated people. Many of them, who joined the Alash movement, suffered
during the revolution.
Many figures of the national intellectuals had a great influence on culture.
They were engaged in teaching, literary and translation activities, created
original textbooks.
In 1911 and 1914.in Orenburg A. Baitursynov published a collection of
poems “Masa”, then an illustrated primer. In 1913-1917.he became the editor of
the Kazakh newspaper, published in Orenburg in the Kazakh language.
Akhmet Baitursynov (1872-1937) was one of the leaders of the national-
liberation movements of the Kazakhs against coloniar czar oppression and the
soviet regime, organizer of the national-democratic party “Alash” and the
government Alash-Orda, also the editor of the “Kazakh” newspaper.
In the second half of the 30th he shared tragic fate of the intelligence, by
becoming a victim of Stallin’s repressions. He was accused of bourgeois
nationalistic ideas and became an “enemy of the state”.
Нe became one of the first in the Turks world to develop a definitions of art
theory and culture. He devoted a lot of time to the problems of language and
literature. His work “Introduction to literature” has made a significant
contribution in the development of Kazakh literature as well as worldwide
literature. Such works as “New grammar”, “New primer”, “First rule”, “First
phonetics”, “First grammar”, “First syntax”, “First terminology and spelling”
have made s significant contribution in the develop-ment of Kazakh language
and overall in Turkology. That way he made a significant impact in politics of
culture.
In the culture he saw the way of keeping the unity of the nation and the
development of national statehood, achieving the level of civilized countries.
Most important part of the development of culture became the production
of A.Baiturysnov together with A.Bukeihanov and M.Dulatov of the
newspaper “Kazakh”. The pages showed actual problems of the development of
national culture, the problems of education were covered, preparation of the
employees, also for the benefit of the people articles that covered mathematics,
literature, medicine and history were placed; introduction to agriculture,
farming, traditions and customs of Kazakh and other nations were covered as
well. Content of the many articles were concentrated on forming a certain
impression of the legitimacy of the social development, on patriotic education,
civic consciousness and other values, that political culture consists of. Namely,
because of the management as an editor A.Baitursynov achieved nationwide
awakening of national self consciousness according to M.Auezov.
Alikhan Bukeikhanov(1866-1937) is a prominent public and statesman,
organizer and leader of the national democratic party “Alash”, head of the first
Kazakh national government of Alashorda, scientist, talented publicist. He was
born in a village near the Karkaralinsky district of the Semipalatinsk region
(now the territory of the Aktogay district of the Karaganda region).

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 In 1886-1890 he studied at the Omsk Technical college. 1890-1894 years
of study at the Faculty of Economics of the St. Petersburg Imperial Forestry
Institute. Having successfully graduated from this institute as a woodland
economist, Alikhan Bukeikhanov taught mathematics at an agricultural college
in Omsk.
Alikhan Bukeikhanov took an active part in a number of public
organizations. For example, he was a full member of the Semipalatinsk
Subdivision of the West Siberian Department of the Russian Geographical
Society and the Semipalatinsk Statistical Committee.
In 1905 Bukeikhanov was elected to the I State Duma (Russian Empire) in
the Semipalatinsk district. To evoke the national consciousness of Kazakhs and
organize their educational activities, there was the publication of the newspaper
“Kazakh”, the first national periodical in the history of Kazakhs. The leaders of
the Kazakh national movement, including Alikhan Bukeikhanov, took an active
part in the creation of the newspaper, writing their articles under the pseudonym
“son of the steppes”.
After the February revolution (The February Revolution of 1917 in Russia
- large anti-government protests by Petrograd workers and soldiers, which led
to the overthrow of the Russian monarchy and the creation of the Provisional
Government.), Bukeikhanov took an active part in the national liberation
struggle of the Kazakh people.
With the advent of Soviet power, he was hindered in political activity and
recalled for permanent residence in Moscow, where Bukeikhanov spent the last
15 years of his life. During this period, he continues to engage in literature and
research activities. Having carefully collected samples of oral creativity, folklore
heritage, he writes works on history, ethnography, literature.
In 1937 he was charged with “... headed the counter-revolutionary struggle
against Soviet power, established contacts with the leaders of the terrorist center
in Kazakhstan and Moscow.” On September 27, 1937, he was sentenced to
capital punishment. After 56 years, Alikhan Bukeikhanov was rehabilitated.
A great contribution to the development of the culture of Kazakhstan was
made by such thinkers as Myrzhakyp Dulatov, Mukhamedzhan Seralyuly,
Sultanmakhmut Toraigyrov and others.
Myrzhakyp Dulatov was a poet and prose writer, the author of “Unhappy
Zhamal”. This work was reprinted several times. Mukhamedzhan Seralyuly -
Kazakh poet and public figure, journalist. He wrote such works as “Top zargan”
and “Gulgashima”. Sultanmakhmut Toraigyrov is the author of stories about
social inequality and the novel “Kamar Sulu”.
Kazakh literature at the beginning of the twentieth century goes through
the process of formation. In the artistic world, different stylistic directions
develop and function harmoniously: realism and symbolism, romanticism and
populism. However this freedom of creativity was quickly curtailed by the
Soviet regime.

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 The Soviet government took all the processes that take place in national
literatures, including Kazakh, under control. Many writers (Zh.Aymauytov, A.
Baitursynov, M. Dulatov, M. Zhumabaev, K. Kamengerov) were later
accused of nationalism, they were repressed. Literature become a tool of
propaganda and manipulation. A national association of proletarian writers “Kus
Zholy” was created to make easier to control the writers. Most of Kazakh writers
are persecuted and repressed.
Musical, theatrical art, painting of Kazakhstan at the beginning of the
twentieth century. Songs of akyns are a symbol of Kazakh culture, the
embodiment of the spirit and aspirations of nomads. Akyns are carriers of
historical memory, they sang national heroes, thereby forming national identity
and a sense of dignity. They were the keepers of national memory, traditions and
customs. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Kazakh musical art was
represented by the work of such folk songwriters: Nurpeis Bayganin; Zhambyl
Zhabaev; Akan Sery; Kenen Azerbaev; Isa Baizakov; Toktar Amrenov;
Baluan Sholak; Ukili Ibray. Among them is Dina Nurpeisova, a very rich
giftedmusician, follower of Kurmangazy, author of the kyu “Konil ashar”.
In the early 1930 theatrical art was developing. The first professional
theater opened in Kyzyl-Orda. It employed such directors and actors as: Z.
Atabaeva, M. Auezov, K. Zhandarbekov, S. Kozhamkulov, K.
Kuanyshbaev, Zh. Shanin and others. Later, the Kazakh Academic Drama
Theater, the Korean Theater and the Uyghur Music and Drama Theater were
opened.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the painting of Kazakhstan
passes via its formation. In the 1935 a national gallery was created, where art
works of A. Kasteev, A. Ismailov, Kh. Khodzhikov were presented.

16. KAZAKH CULTURE OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.

KAZAKH CULTURE IN THE CONTEXT OF MODERN WORLD
PROCESSES. STATE PROGRAM “CULTURAL HERITAGE”.
16.1. KAZAKH CULTURE DURING THE SOVIET PERIOD.

In the Soviet period, culture was subordinated to the program of building

socialism, on the idea of forming a new culture based on class ideology.
In the first decade of Soviet power, due to the weak development of school
education, there was no University in Kazakhstan. The training of specialists
was carried out only in technical schools and colleges. A large group of Kazakh
young people studied at Russian universities. In 1928, the first university was
opened in Almaty - KazPI named after Abai (now the Kazakh National
Pedagogical University named after Abai).
The formation of a socialist consciousness of a person, his devotion to the
ideas of the Communist Party - were the main goal of Soviet power. Clubs,
libraries, museums, reading rooms and other out-of-school education institutions
were engaged in solving this problem.

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 Cultural and educational institutions were created. For example, cultural
and educational clubs worked everywhere. The clubs opened libraries, gave
performances. For a quarter of a century of socialist construction, a qualitatively
new Kazakh artistic culture has developed. Its core was the principle of socialist
realism.
In the 20-30s, I. Zhansugurov, B. Mailin, M. Auezov, E. Umirzakov, S.
Kozhamkulov, K. Badyrov, I. Bayzakov, K. Zhandarbekov, K. Baiseitova,
A. Kasteev. S. Mukanov, G. Musrepov, G. Mustafin, U. Turmanzhanov, I.
Shukhov and others joined the literary movement. Zh.Zhabayev, N. Bayganin,
K. Azerbaev worked in the mainstream of traditional oral literature. In 1925 the
singer A. Kashaubaev took part in an ethnographic concert at the World
Exhibition in Paris.
The first Kazakhs appeared who professionally mastered the fine arts. Their
teachers and mentors were Russian artists living in Kazakhstan. Some Kazakhs,
endowed with a natural ability to artistically reflect reality, studied in
educational institutions in Moscow and Leningrad. Thus, outside the republic,
art education was received by A. Ismailov, A. Kasteev and others.
During the Second World War, Kazakh literature and art were enriched
with works dedicated to the problems of defending the Motherland. Zhambul
Zhabayev’s poem “Leningraders, my children”, publicistic speeches of B.
Bulkyshev on the pages of the newspaper “Komsomolskaya Pravda” were read
in all Soviet Union.
Zhambul’s appeal to the heroic defenders of besieged Leningrad
“Leningraders, my children!” Is one of the best works of multinational Soviet
literature of the war years.
The epic novel by M. Auezov“Abai’s Way” in 4 books has become a real
world-class encyclopedia on the culture and history of the Kazakh people. In the
works of S. Mukanov, G. Musrepov, G. Mustafin - writers, an artistic
interpretation of the images of Ch. Valikhanov, S. Seifullin, a working man, a
Kazakh soldier-warrior, mothers are given. People’s Artist of the Kazakh SSR
A. Kasteev painted a new version of the portrait of “Amangeldy”, the artist A.
Cherkassky created a portrait of the Hero of the Soviet Union Malik
Gabdullin.
In the years post II World War, original works were created by A.
Zhubanov, E. Brusilovsky, V. Velikanov, L. Khamidi, S. Shabelsky and
others. The best creation of the Kazakh cinematography of the 50-60s was the
films “Zhambul”, “Botagoz”, “His time will come”, “Song of Manshuk”,
“Moscow is behind us”, “Girl-horseman”. The films of the 70-80s “Kyz-
Zhibek”, “The End of the Ataman”, “Transsiberian Express”, “Torah”,
“Sultan Beybarys”.
“Blood and Sweat” by A. Nurpeisov, “Nomads” by I. Esenberlin,
“Urker”by A. Kekilbaev, “The Zhunusov Brothers”by H. Esenzhanov, “Red
Arrow”by Sh. Murtaza, “Ahan Sery”by S. Zhunusov, books byB.
Momyshuly, D. Snegin, A. Nurshaikhov, T. Akhtanov, M. Magauin, K.

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Zhumadilov, K. Salgar, D. Isabekov and others demonstrated the ideological
and artistic growth of the national literature. Poets M. Makataev, T.
Aybergenov, O. Suleimenov, K. Myrzaliev, M. Shakhanov, F. Ungarsynova,
T. Moldagaliev, N. Aitov, K. Akhmetova raised the literary movement to a
new level.

16.2. MONUMENTS OF SACRED CULTURE ON THE

TERRITORY OF KAZAKHSTAN. STATE PROGRAM “CULTURAL
HERITAGE”.

The state program “Cultural Heritage” was developed at the initiative of

the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan N. A. Nazarbayev. The program
provides for the creation of an integral system for studying the vast cultural
heritage of the people, including modern national culture, folklore, traditions
and customs; reconstruction of historical, cultural and architectural monuments
of particular importance for national history; generalization of the centuries-old
experience of national literature and writing; creation in the state language of a
full-fledged fund of humanitarian education on the basis of the best
achievements of world scientific thought, culture and literature.
The purpose of the Program is to study, restore and preserve the historical
and cultural heritage of the country, revive the historical and cultural traditions,
and promote the cultural heritage of Kazakhstan abroad.
One of the tasks of the Cultural Heritage program is to promote the
national historical and cultural heritage at the international level. Study and
recreate monuments of history and culture directly related to the history of
Kazakhstan in the countries of near and far abroad. Foreign projects have been
successfully implemented - the restoration of the Sultan Az-Zahir Beybars
mausoleum in Damascus, the Sultan Beybars mosque in Cairo, the
construction of a historical and cultural center and the Al-Farabi mausoleum in
Damascus. High-quality and meaningful documentaries about the Berel and
Issyk burial mounds, monuments in the city of Turkestan and the Otrar
settlement, and other historical places in Kazakhstan will be created and will be
shown on world TV channels such as BBC and Discovery.
To strengthen the statehood and the spirit of the Kazakh people, the state
introduces projects such as “Tugan zher” - Native land, “Sacred geography of
Kazakhstan”, “Modern Kazakh culture in the global world”, “100 new faces of
Kazakhstan”, “Sacred geography of Kazakhstan”, State program “Rukhani
zhangyru” (“Spiritual renewal”).
A list of 185 nationwide sacred objects of Kazakhstan has been identified
under the “Rukhani Zhangyru” program. These are especially revered
monuments of natural and cultural heritage that have an enduring value in the
memory of the Kazakh people and serve as a symbol of national unity and
revival. Natural landscape objects such as “sacred” mountains, caves, rivers,
tracts, ancient settlements, places of unusual natural phenomena, ancestral

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sanctuaries, burial mounds, objects of religious worship, places of memorable
battles and exploits, places of life great people, saints, mausoleums, temples and
other monuments of natural cultural and historical heritage, where worship is
one of the foundations of spiritual traditionsour people.
The list of national sacred sites is divided into six categories:
1) especially revered natural heritage sites;
2) archaeological and architectural monuments;
3) large medieval urban centers and capitals of the Kazakh Khanate;
4) religious and cult objects that are places of worship;
5) sacred places associated with historical figures;
6) places associated with historical and political events.

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 16.3. GLOBALIZATION AND THE PROBLEM OF SELF-
IDENTIFICATION OF ETHNO-REGIONAL CULTURES.

Globalization is the most powerful and significant global process. The

Republic of Kazakhstan, as it joins the world community and finds its place in it,
is experiencing the impact of globalization in ever greater volume and depth.
The national identity of any national community is determined by many
factors - historical, political, cultural, linguistic, territorial, civilizational and
others. The problem of identification and self-identification of its members is
difficult and urgent in the development of society.
This is a sense of belonging, an individual’s identification with someone or
something (group, collective), which helps him to successfully assimilate his
norms and values, the transfer of the qualities and characteristics of his external
environment by the individual to himself.
Each person belongs to one an ethnic group.
Identity is formed on the basis of the corresponding national paradigm. Its
content includes the established features of national culture, ethnic
characteristics, customs, beliefs, myths, moral imperatives, etc. It is closely
related to the concept of “national character”
Ethnic self-identification is a conscious act of a person’s ethnic self-
determination, referring oneself to a certain ethnic community.
In the Republic of Kazakhstan in recent years, two main strategies of
nation-building have emerged.
The first strategy is aimed at forming a single Kazakhstani nation from a
multi-ethnic society based on a common citizenship, the second strategy should
be related to the national identity of the Kazakhs themselves.
Kazakhstan has always been a multinational state, so the problem of ethnic
identity and interethnic tolerance will never cease to be relevant.
One of the most important tasks facing Kazakhstan is the cultural and
linguistic impact of globalization. It is known that one of the elements of
globalization is the obligatory interpenetration of cultures, traditions and
languages. The limitedness of the cultural and linguistic sphere of the Kazakh
society by the territory of the country determines the real dangers facing it of
being absorbed by other influential Western cultures and languages of the world.
The obligatory law of progress and success of the state, the people, the
individual is competitiveness in comparison with their partners and opponents.
Today, young people themselves decide what they need to be competitive in the
market, to achieve success and development. It is obvious that competitiveness
in the context of globalization is more related to obtaining a decent, if possible -
foreign education, knowledge of a computer, work experience, as well as
knowledge of foreign languages - English, German, Chinese and others. The
cultural and linguistic pressure of globalization is one of the most negative
elements, which sets before the whole society, the state difficult tasks of
preserving the originality and uniqueness of the Kazakh society and language.

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 16.4. THE MAIN GENRES OF CONTEMPORARY KAZAKH ART:
LITERATURE, PAINTING, THEATER, ARCHITECTURE, MUSIC,
CINEMA, TELEVISION.

The period of independence brought new content to all types of art. Such
types of fine arts as literature, painting, theater, architecture, music, cinema,
television, sculpture, graphics, decorative and applied arts continued their
development and received new impulses, innovative forms of culture such as
installation, performance, environment, object, art action have emerged and are
successfully developing. The architecture of Kazakhstan received a new impulse
and powerful development, impressively embodied in the construction of the
new capital of the country - Nur-Sultan.
The culture and fine arts of sovereign Kazakhstan received the opportunity
for free self-realization, deep inner self-knowledge. The visual arts of this period
reflected the fundamental trends in the development of public consciousness in
Kazakhstan, refracted and artistically transformed the most capacious ideas and
meanings of modern national spirituality
Literature of the period of independence.
During the years of independence of our country, Kazakh prose has risen to
a new stage of its development. Independence introduced freedom of speech to
writers. Therefore, during the period of independence, a large number of works
were written about Kazakh history, which had previously been assessed as one-
sided. A number of historical novels by A. Alimzhanov, I. Esenberlin, S.
Smataev, A. Kekilbaev. written in the 70-80s of the XX century, in the years of
independence was replenished with such new works as “Trouble”, “Adversity”
by Zh.Akhmadi, “Oath”, “Deep Sorrow” by K. Akhmetbekov, K.
Zhumadilov’s novel-dilogy “Daraboz”,”A Vain Life” by B. Mukai, “The Last
Duty” by A. Nurpeisov, “Motherland“ by S. Smataev. “Zharylgap Batyr”,
“Red Tiger”, “White Banner of Abylai” by U. Dospanbetov. “Death of Otrar”
by H. Adibayev, “Belaskan”by K. Segizbay, “Ospan Batyr” by S.
Abilkasymuly, “Tears of Gray Wolves” by T. Zakenuly, “Esengeldy bi” by
Zh.Ahmadi, “Shon bi” by Kalmukan Isabaev.
In the novels, an artistic panorama of the Kazakh history of different eras
was created, starting with the ancient history of the Turkic peoples. The novel
“Adversity” depicts an artistic picture of the birth, formation, development and
disintegration of the East Turkestan Republic, K. Isabaev’s”Shon Bi” covers a
huge amount of material, starting with the victory over the Dzungars. and ending
with the period of Russian colonialism. The novel “Daraboz” describes the
national liberation war of the Kazakh people against the Dzungarian invaders,
the basis for “Zharylgap Batyr” was the events that took place during the reign
of Abylai Khan.
During the late XX and early XXI centuries such writers as, K. Isabaev, T.
Nurmagambetov, J. Ahmadi, K. Segizbaev, A. Askar, M. Yskakbai, N.
Akysh. A. Altai made a great contribution to the development of literature. In

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M. Yskakbay’s story “The Woman Who Didn’t Know Love” we become
witnesses of the story of one big resort love between two family people.
Painting of the period of independence.
The graphic works of such masters as E. Tulepbaev, A. Akanaev, T.
Togusbaev(p.65,66) are based on mythology, the heritage of ancestors, the
ideological ideas of nomadic tribes about the relationship between man and
nature, the universe. Masters of painting of Kazakhstan gradually switch to the
language of abstractions and symbols, stylistically transforming them. Spiritual
and philosophical depth determines the style and content of paintings by K.
Mullashev, G. Bayanov, K. Duisenbaev, D. Aliyev, which actualize the
themes of our time associated with the moral and ethical problems of modern
society, with ecology.

Picture 66..A. Akanaev. " Turks

in Iran"

A. Akanaev - the founder of the

neo-traditionalism style and the
technology of relief painting.

(Technique in painting refers to

the features of applying paint on
a canvas and the associated
visual and optical effects)

Picture 66.
Erbolat Tolepbaev "Family"

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 (Picture 67)Bekseit
Tyulkiev "The Artist’s
Dream"

In The Artist’s Dream, B. Tyulkiev(p.67) postulates simple human qualities

- compassion, love, kindness. The canvas is designed in an ocher color, which
helps it to translate reality into convention, to give it a metaphysical meaning.
Theatrical art
Theaters have a special place in the formation of a new society in an
independent state. There are 54 theaters in Kazakhstan. Three of them are opera
and ballet theaters, 16 are Russian, 9 are puppet theaters. There are also 4
national theaters - Korean, German, Uyghur and Uzbek - in Sairam.

Picture 68. Theater “Astana-Opera”.

The State Opera and Ballet Theater “Astana-Opera” is a theater founded
in 2013, recognized as an architectural monument of national importance.

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 Picture 69. Theater “Astana-Opera”.

The repertoire of the “Astana Opera” includes works by outstanding

national composers - the operas by M. Tulebaev“Birzhan - Sara”, A.
Zhubanov and L. Khamidi“Abay”, “Kyz Zhibek” by E. Brusilovsky, the ballet
“Karagoz” to the music of G. Zhubanova. World classics are represented by
opera performances: Aida, La Traviata, Don Carlos by G. Verdi, La Boheme,
Tosca, Madame Butterfly, Turandot by G. Puccini, Carmen by J. Bizet, “The
Barber of Seville” and the farce opera “Silk Stairs” by G. Rossini, “Eugene
Onegin”by P. Tchaikovsky; ballets “The Sleeping Beauty”, “Swan Lake”, “The
Nutcracker” by P. Tchaikovsky, “Romeo and Juliet” by S. Prokofiev,
“Spartacus” by A. Khachaturian, “Bakhchisarai Fountain” by B. Asafiev, “La
Bayadere” and “Don Quixote”L. Minkus, “Le Corsaire” and “Giselle” by A.
Adan, “Coppelia” by L. Delibes; productions of M. Fokine’sChopiniana and
Scheherazade, B. Eifman’sRodin, R. Petit’sNotre Dame Cathedral, K.
McMillan’sManon and others.
On the stage of the Astana Opera, together with famous Kazakhstani artists
- Bibigul Tulegenova, Alibek Dnishev, Ayman Musakhadzhaeva,
Nurzhamal Usenbayeva and others, the stars of world music performed:
Placido Domingo, Zubin Meta, Elena Obraztsova, Valery Gergiev, Josereb
Carreras, Marselo Alvarez, Svetlana Zakharova, Ildar Abdrazakov and
others.
The Milanese La Scala Theater, the Neapolitan San Carlo, the Genoese
Carlo Felice, the National Paris Opera, the Mariinsky Theater of St. Petersburg
and others have toured here.

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 Picture 70. The Academic Russian Drama Theater named after M.
Gorky is the oldest drama theater in Nur-Sultan.
One of the oldest theaters in Kazakhstan, the State Academic Russian
Drama Theater (p.70). M. Gorky city of Astana was created at the end of the
XIX century,it was founded in 1899 in Akmolinsk. Connoisseurs of dramatic art
and local merchants stood at the origins of its creation. The theater quickly
gained popularity.
In the 1970-1980, the performances “Valentin and Valentina” by Mikhail
Roshchin, “Blue Deer” by Alexei Kolomiets, “Mother Courage and Her
Children” by Bertolt Brecht, and “Give in to Tomorrow” based on the play by
Vin Delmare were staged.
The modern musical art
With the acquisition of independence, the modern musical art of
Kazakhstan began to revive rapidly, using national traditions.
The work of Kuat Shildebaev, a composer of the middle generation, is
distinguished by a special worldview, a sense of time and space. He writes
chamber instrumental music, which requires filigree finishing, sophistication
and special flair.
The scale and depth of the artistic reflection of the ideas and images of our
time characterizes the work of the outstanding composer Gaziza Zhubanova.
She created Large-scale orchestral and vocal-choral epic works (symphony
“Zhiger”, oratorios “Dawn over the Steppe”, “Heroic Poem”), compositions for
musical and drama theaters (for example, the ballet “The Legend of the White
Bird”), chamber instrumental works carry a high intensity of civil, patriotic
pathos, imbued with the idea of freedom and independence of the Kazakh
people.
The period of sovereign independence is a positive basis for progressive
changes in the field of pop art, synthesizing in their work features of the
European style with rich folklore origins: Batyrkhan Shukenov, Zhamilya
Serkebaeva, Edil Khusainov, Lana, Asylbek Ensepov, “A-studio”, “ABK”,
“Ulytau”, “Orker”, “Musikola”, “Zhigitter”, “Parnas”, “JCS”, “MuzArt”,
132
“Art Vocal”, “Serper”, “Not Finished Уеt” and many others. The very fact of
the existence of such a phenomenon is indicative of Central Asian musical
cultural spaces. Talented universal musicians and vocal and instrumental groups
have brought seemingly paradoxical phenomena to the national stage - the
combination of Western cultural trends with the intonations of Kazakh melos.
Such singers of Kazakhstan as Dimash Kudaibergen, Mariya Mudryak,
Scryptonite gained world fame.

Picture 71. Dimash Kudaibergen is a Kazakh singer, composer and multi-

instrumentalist
Dimash Kudaibergen gained fame in China thanks to his participation in
the popular television show Singer 2017(p.71). In competition with recognized
singers, he reached the final, finishing in second place. Dimash is known for his
wide vocal range, covering 6 octaves, 5 semitones. Despite the fact that after
completing his studies in the genre of academic opera singing he was invited to
work at the State Theater of Opera and Ballet “Astana Opera”, Dimash decided
to develop his career in contemporary music with using classical elements, as
well as traditional Kazakh music and pop music.

Picture 72.Mariya Mudryak.

Mariya Mudryak was born in Pavlodar (Kazakhstan) in 1994(p.72)
From the age of ten she studied vocals in Italy, where she first sang in the
children’s choir of the La Scala theater.
In 2015, after winning the AsLiCo competition for young opera singers,
she performed at theaters in Lombardy. She sang the parts of Juliet (“The Tales
133
of Hoffmann” by J. Offenbach) and Norina (“Don Pasquale” by G. Donizetti).
She made her debut at the Ravenna Opera Festival as Musetta (La Bohème by
G. Puccini), which she later sang at the Lithuanian National Opera (Vilnius).

Picture 73. Scryptonit.

Scryptonit, or Adil Oralbekovich Zhalelov was born on June 3, 1990,
Leninsky, Kazakh SSR), better known by his stage name Scriptonite, is a
Kazakh rapper and music producer(p.73). For the first time he loudly declared
himself in 2013 with a video clip for the song “VBVVCTND”, and a year and a
half later he released his debut album “House with Normal Phenomena”, which
became one of the most successful Russian-language rap albums of 2015.
Scryptonite positions its work as “Kazakh rap”. His first texts were devoted to
children’s problems and school, then came a short period of the so-called “rap
about rap”, and he began to raise current topics in the early 2010s.

134
 Conclusion

The author of this textbook did not set himself the task of providing
comprehensive knowledge about all aspects of culture that would be the only
guide to cultural studies in English.Such a task is not only impossible, but also
useless. In the cycle of university subjects, it is necessary to provide students
with a basic course of lectures, which would give basic knowledge. The
peculiarity of the study of culture is that it has a variety of approaches.Especially
in English language literature. Students are faced with the fact that all literature
on English-language sites on culture, cultural history and cultural studies is
written in a special terminological language and is devoted to narrow scientific
topics. This is really tough for first year students.
In our country, a lot of textbooks and manuals have been published
covering the history of art, philosophical problems of culture, anthropological
aspects, etc. But they are all given in Russian and Kazakh. Moreover, in the
New Model Curriculum, large sections on the history of the Kazakh ancient
culture have been introduced. There is little information about it in English.
Moreover, the student should have a guideline that gives a systematic view
of the subject. The author tried to resolve these topical issues.
The tutorial is divided into three large parts. The first part is devoted to the
theory of culture, typology of culture, basic cultural concepts and schools. The
second part reveals the history of culture. There is a lot of material in this
section, this is a very broad area of knowledge. However, tutorial’s volume is
limited. The study guide should concisely and systematically present the basic
information about the culture. The third part is more extensive as many new
topics were introduced by the Model Curriculum.
In general, the tutorial can be useful for students and for teachers teaching
classes in English as well.

135
 Questions
On the theme 1
1. What does culture mean in a broad sense?
2. How did Cicero mean the word culture?
3. What was the meaning of the term “culture” in the works of the German
lawyer and historiographer Samuel von Pufendorf?
4. What are the principles underlying the understanding of culture in the
“classical model”?
5. How the symbolic approach defined the concept of culture?
6. What does axiological, civilizational, structuralist, anthropological
interpretations of the concept of culture mean?
7. What functions of culture do you know?
8. When the science of cultural studies arose?
9. What schools of cultural studies do you know?
On the theme 2:
1. What is cultural morphology?
2. What are the levels of culture?
3. What kind of culture typology do you know?
4. What does diachronic and synchronous approaches mean in culture?
5. What does the culture code mean?
6. What does semiotics mean?
7. What cultural languages do you know?
On the theme 3:
1. What is the purpose of structural analysis?
2. Whose works structural method was successfully applied in?
3. Who is the founder of the semiotics?
4. Why E. Cassirer postulated: “man is a symbolic animal”?
5. What doessymbol in culturemean?
6. What kind of Symbols of religion do you know?
7. What kind of Symbols in art do you know?
On the theme 4:
1.When was the evolutionary school formed?
2.What was the core idea of evolutionist explanations of social
development?
3. What kind of stages society passes through according Lewis Henry
Morgan?
4. What kind of basic stages of development passed through all societies by
E. Taylor?
5. What was the core idea of L. White’sstudy of cultural processes?
6. What is the main feature of the naturalistic school in cultural studies?
7. What kind of new discovering in conception of culture made S.Freud?
8. What kind of levels of the psyche discovered Freud?
9. What does it mean - the conception of local cultures?
10. What kind of cultures identified Spengler?

136
 Onthe theme 5:
1. What kind of genres of primitive art do you know?
2. What does the zoological or animal style in art mean?
3. What was the most important feature of the ancient Egyptian
civilization?
4. What kind of city-states in the IV-III millennia BC on the territory of
Mesopotamia do you know?
5. What is the most important monument of Sumerian literature?
6. What is the greatest monument of spiritual culture and ancient Indian
literature?
7. What kind of ideological trends were in ancient China?
8. What kind of periodscan you distinguishin the culture of Ancient
Greece?
9. Who was the founder of the main directions of philosophy -
rationalism?
10. What does empiricism mean?
On theme 6:
1. What kind of period coversMiddle Ages?
2. What was the most important feature of medieval culture?
3. WhenChristianity has become the state religion?
4. What does Roman style mean?
5. How can be characterizedGothic style?
6. What kind of ancient centers of translation the Greco-Hellenistic culture
do you know?
7. Who was the author of“The Book of Medicine” (“Kitab at-Tibb al-
Mansuri)?
8. What Ibn Sina was known for?
On the theme 7:
1. What the term Renaissancemean?
2. What kind of centuries covered Renaissance?
3. What were the mainprinciples of Renaissance?
4. What Jovanni Boccaccio was famous for?
5. What does the Painting Vitruvian Man created by Leonardo da Vinci
mean?
6. Who was the founder of the theory of perspective?
7. What was the main idea of Reformation and Protestantism?
On the theme 8:
1. What does the “Age of Enlightenment” mean?
2. How can be characterized the style of Classicism?
3. Who was famous painter in style of Classicism?
4. What does the style “baroque” mean?
5. How can be characterized the style of baroque?
6. How can be characterized the style of rococo?

137
 7. What had great impact to romantique style?
8. Which principlesCritical realismbased on?
9. How can be characterized the style ofimpressionism?
10. How did the artists achieve “immersion in the air of objects”?
On the theme 9:
1. What kind of new styles in culture appeared in XX century?
2. What kind of directionsunitedModernism?
3. How can be characterized Expressionism?
4. Who was the famous painters in style of Expressionism?
5. When did the Abstract Art appear?
6. What does the picture of Kazimir Malevich “Black Square” mean?
7. What kind of theory effected the direction of Surrealism?
8. Who was the main surrealist painters?
On the theme 10:
1. What does Nomadism as a type of culture the purpose of structural
analysis mean?
2. What types of nomads do you know?
3. What kind of type of nomadism fixed in Kazakhstan?
4. Who were the Turkic-speaking tribes?
5. What does “the art of animal style” means?
6. What can you tell about the sacred cultureof the Saks, Scythians,
Sarmatians?
7. What does the sacred tree Baiterek mean?
On the theme 11:
1. What does “Animal style of the Huns” mean?
2. What kind of achievements in the culture of the Huns do you know?
3. What kind of legends about Attila do you know?
4. In what masterpieces is Attila’s personality reflected?
5. What is Tengrianism mean?
6. What kind of deities in Tengrianism do you know?
7. What about Large runic texts of Mongolia and Yenisei?
8. What kind of religious beliefs had Turks in VI to VIII centuries?
On the theme 12:
1. What can you tell about “Great Silk Road”?
2. What kind of cities - The centers of culture in medieval Kazakhstan do
you know?
3. What can you tell about mutual influence of Indian culture and Turkic
civilization?
4. Can you describe the material culture of medieval Turkic people?
5. What kind of contribution made Al-Farabi to the formation of medieval
culture?
6. What was Abu Reyhan Biruni famous for?
7. What achievements did Ibn Sina to science?
On the theme 13:

138
 1. What can you tell about specificity of the Islamization of the nomadic
Turks?
2. What was Yusuf Balasaguni famous for?
3. What was Mahmud Kashgari famous for?
4. What are the specifics of Sufism?
5. What kind of contribution made Khoja Ahmet Yassavi to the formation
of medieval culture?
6. What was Golden Horde famous for?
7. What achievements in culture was done in Golden Horde?
On theme 14:
1.What can you tell about dwellings adapted to nomadic life - yurt?
2. What can you tell about material culture of the Kazakh people?
3. What kind of mythological plots of ancient Kazakhs do you know?
4. Who were zhyrau? What famous zhyrau do you know?
5. What kind of epic poems and legends of ancient Kazakhs do you know?
6. What kind of famous instruments of Kazakhs do you know?
7. What kind of traditions, rituals, customs of the Kazakh peopledo you
know?
Onthe theme 15:
1.What can you tell about culture of Kazakhstan in the 18th century?
2. What does Tolgau suggest?
3. When wasthe first special school for Kazakh children opened?
4. Who kind of contribution to culture made Ybyrai Altynsarin?
5. What about wrote Shokan Ualikhanov in his“Essays of Dzhungaria»,
«Notes about Kirghizs». «On the genres of Kazakh Folk Poetry», «Diary of a
trip to Issyk-Kul», «Legends of Kirghiz-Kaisak Orda»?
6. What is Abai Kunanbayev famous for?
7. What kind of Abay’s poems and work do you know?
On the theme 16:
1.What can you tell about culture of Kazakhstan in the Soviet period?
2. What kind of famous Kazakh writers of literature do you know?
3. What about the state program “Cultural Heritage”?
4. Who kind of categories of national sacred sites do you know?
5. Who kind of national sacred sites do you know?
6. what is correlation between national identity andGlobalization?
7. What can you tell about the main genres of contemporary Kazakh art:
literature, painting, theater, architecture, music, cinema, television?

139
 TESTS FOR THE CHAPTER I
1. Who was the first to apply the concept of culture in relation to an
educated and upbrought person?
A. Plato
B. Aristotle
C. Cicero
D. Voltaire
E. Condorcet
2. What does term “culture” in Latin mean?
A. cultivation, care
B. education, training
C. training, teaching
D. support, accompaniment
E. walk, tour
3. What kind of phrase did Cicero use in association with culture?
A. cultivating the soul
B. nurturing the soul
C. lift the soul
D. raise a person
E. cherish the soul
4. German lawyer and historiographer of the 17th century:
A. Voltaire
B. Condorcet
C. Turgot
D. Samuel von Pufendorf
E. Georg Wilhelm Hegel
5. Who associated the content of the cultural and historical process with
the development of the human mind?
A. French enlighteners
B. German philosophers
C. Kazakh thinkers
D. Indian yogis
E. Chinese philosophers
6. When the classical definition of culture was developed?
A. At the Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century
B. At the Time of Classicism of the 18th century
C. In the Avant-garde of the 18th century
D. At the Age of Enlightenment of the 20th century
E. In the Middle Age
7. When the principle of humanism was formed?
A. In the Middle Age
B. In the VI-th century b.c.
C. In the Modern time
D. in the Renaissancetime

140
 E. In the Time of Enlightenment
8. Which principles based the classic understanding of culture on?
A. humanism, rationalism, historicism
B. Classicism, avant-garde, surrealism
C. barbarism, illiteracy
D. rationalism, agnosticism, eclecticism
E. atomism, eclecticism, rationalism
9. The brightest representative of the Marburg school, author of the
monumental three-volume Philosophy of Symbolic Forms:
A. Rickert
B. W. Windelband
C. Ernst Kassirer
D. K. Marx
E. Z. Freud
10. How does one explain culture by the axiological concept?
A. culture is a moral environment
B. culture is a set of system of basic values of society
C. this is high fashion
D. culture is a set of linguistic signs
E. culture is a sublimation of the unconscious
11. Which analogy the Civilizational concepts of culture based on?
A. in association with the unconscious
B. by analogy with music
C. by analogy with mathematics and exact sciences
D. on analogy to rational thinking
E. on analogy with living organisms
12. Which trend studied culture on a strictly scientific basis using exact
methods of natural sciences?
A. personalism
B. Structuralism
C. Freudianism
D. naturalistic school
E. existentialism
13.What kind of function of culture provides integral knowledge about a
people, a country, an era?
A. Regulatory function
B. cognitive function
C. axiological function
D. humanistic function
E. Semiotic function
14. Who was the author of the book “Primitive Culture”?
A. V.F. Ostwald
B. Malinovsky
C. E.B. Tylor

141
 D. Weber
E. K. Jaspers
15. Who was the first introduced the term “cultural studies” into science?
A. V.F. Ostwald
B. Malinovsky
C. Alfred Weber
D. Leslie White
E. Karl Jaspers
16. Which idea is concordant with the theory of cultural evolutionism?
A. the idea of the universality of the progressive development of culture
from primitive society to civilization
B. culture consists of separate organisms, closed and independent from
each other, each of which has its own characteristics of development
and a certain period of existence
C. the higher a culture is developed, the stronger its side effects
D. culture is a kind of mechanism of social suppression of the free inner
world of individuals, a forced conscious refusal of people to satisfy
their natural passions
E. cultural world consists of initially isolated cultures
17. Who developed the energetic concept of cultural evolution?
A. S. Freud
B. L. White
C. K. Jung
D. L. H. Morgan
E. Taylor
18. Who sought to apply psychological concepts to explain the phenomena
of culture, the processes of creativity and the development of society as a
whole?
A. V.F. Ostwald
B. Malinovsky
C. Karl Jaspers
D. S. Freud
E. Leslie White
19. Who developed the theory of cultural determinism?
A. E.Tylor
B. F.Boas
C. Alfred Weber
D. Karl Jaspers
E. Leslie White

142
 20. In what theory was it considered that culture is sublimation, the desire
for compensation, which is the basis of many of the greatest achievements in art,
politics and science?
A. theory of cultural evolutionism
B. structural functionalism
C. psychoanalysis theory
D. Darwin’s theory of evolution
E. theory of local cultures
TESTS FOR CHAPTER II
1. What does animal style in art mean?
A. depict animals in small figurines
B. the image of an animal in thoughts
C. the image of the animal in the movies
D. zoological reserves
E. jungle animals
2. What is Aurignac culture famous for?
A. massive buildings
B. large sculptures of Gods
C. female figurines made of stone and bone
D. building structures
E. central heating
3. When was the first farming settlements appeared in the Nile Delta?
A. around 3000 BC
B. around 4200 BC
C. approximately XVII-th century
D. in the V-th century
E. at the II-nd century
4. What was the main and the most important feature of the ancient
Egyptian civilization?
A. cult of fire
B. animal cult
C. sacralization of state power
D. matriarchy
E. moon worship
5.What kind of cult was most popular in the ancient Egypt?
A. Deity of the SunRa
B. cult of fire
C. cult of the Goddess of Beauty
D. the cult of the Wolf as foremother
E. Cult of the Sky God
6. What Deity of ancient Egypt was portrayed as a man with the head of an
ibis, who was credited with creating all spiritual life?
A. Deity of the SunRa
B. The God of Sky

143
 C. Deity Isis
D. Osiris
E. Deity Thoth
7. Who wrote a consolidated work on the ancient Sumerian-Akkadian
history in ancient time?
A. Babylonian priest Berossus
B. Chaldean priest Zeno
C. Mesopathic scholar Herodotus
D. Sumerian historian David
E. Akkadian astrologer Homer
8. What was the most important monument of Sumerian literature?
A. Homer’s Odyssey
B. legends about Gilgamesh
C. Works and Days of Hesiod
D. History of Herodotus
E. The Legend of the Nibilungs
9. What did the name of city Babylon mean?
A. A beautiful city
B. City of masters
C. Eternal city
D. The Gate of God
E. Empire capital
10. How Babylonians called a free, full-fledged citizen?
A. avilum
B. Liber
C. dominus
D. personality
E. senor
11. When was the civilization of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro discovered?
A. at II millennium
B. in 1965
C. in the 1920-th
D. in XIX century
E. at XVII century
12. What is the greatest monument of spiritual culture of ancient India?
A. Works and days of Hesiod
B. Lun - yu
C. Poem of Gilgamesh
D. Homer’s Odyssey
E. the Vedas
13. Who was the founder of Taoism?
A. Lao Tzu
B. Mozi
C. Confucius

144
 D. Shan Yuan
E. Tai Jo
14. What does the word Tao literally mean?
A. energy
B. path
C. atom
D. stuff
E. metal
15. What does “wu-wei” mean?
A. reverence
B. worship of heaven
C. theory of non-action
D. ancestor cult
E. supreme deity
16. What were the main virtues of man by Confucius?
A. love everyone as an equal
B. equality before the law
C. strict obedience to the law
D. loyalty, obedience and respectfor rulers and parents
E. be freedom-loving
17. What was the main principle of Moizm?
A. loyalty, obedience and respectfor rulers
B. strict obedience to the law
C. universal love and mutual benefit
D. governments total control
18. The main mythological narratives of the ancient Greek in which was
given a cosmogonic picture of the origin of the world?
A. Theogony of Hesiod
B. The Vedas
C. Lun - yu
D. Poem of Gilgamesh
E. Homer’s Odyssey
19. Who was the founder of rationalism in acient Greek
A. Aristotle
B. Socrates
C. Zeno
D. Aristipus
E. Homer
20. What kind of direction in philosophy was founded by Aristotle?
A. existentialism
B. rationalism
C. avant-garde
D. psychoanalysis
E. empiricism

145
 TESTS FOR THE CHAPTER III
1. What was the basis of the religion of the ancient Turks?
A. Tengrianism
B. Manichaeism
C. Christianity
D. Buddhism
E. Islam
2. Who was the first famous thinker of the Saks?
A. Aiteke bi
B. Anacharsis
C. Akpanbet
D. Herodotus
E. Hesiod
3. Who was Toksary?
A. ancient greek scientist
B. Saka ruler lived in the 4th century
C. ancient Scythian thinker lived around 7th century BC
D. Scythian leader
E. 6th century Hun leader
4. What kind of style was popular in ancient saks culture?
A. classic style
B. expressionism
C. luxury style
D. the animal style
E. romanticism
5. Which Germanic epic legends gave the image of Attila?
A. Works and days
B. Odyssey
C. History of Herodotus
D. The Legend of Gilgamesh
E. Song of the Nibelungs
6. What was the supreme deity of ancient turks?
A. Tengri Khan
B. Yer-su
C. Erlik
D. Earth
E. Tornado
7. Who discoveredhuge stone steles with inscriptions in runic script?
A. German scientist Weber
B. Russian scientist N.M. Yadrintsev
C. English explorer Scott
D. Russian traveler Potanin
E. Kazakh historian Akishev
8. Which time The Great Silk Road was in use?

146
 A. from the 6-s century to the 16th century
B. from the 1nd century BC to the 20th century
C. from the 2nd century BC to the 16th century
D. from the 2nd century BC to nowaday
E. from the 7-th century BC to the 16th century
9. Who was given the title “Mu-Allim Assana - Second Teacher”?
A. Aristotle
B. Plato
C. Ibn Sina
D. Abu Nasr al-Farabi
E. AL-Khorezmi
10. Who was the author of The Book of Healing?
A. Abu Nasr al-Farabi
B. Aristotle
C. Plato
D. AL-Khorezmi
E. Ibn Sina
11. What was the main book of Balasaguni?
A. Kutadgu Bilig
B. The Book of Healing
C. Divani Hikmet
D. Book of Wisdom
E. Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk
12. Who was the author of Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk?
A. Abu Nasr al-Farabi
B. Mahmud Kashgari
C. Plato
D. Ibn Sina
E. AL-Khorezmi
13. What is sufism?
A. radical direction in religion
B. rationalism
C. a form of Islamic mysticism
D. direction of philosophical agnosticism
E. researcher’s position
14. What was the main book of Khoja AkhmetYassaui?
A. Spiritual trip
B. Kutadgu Bilig
C. The Book of Healing
D. Divani Hikmet
E. Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk
15. What kind of economic was prevailed in the economy of the Kazakh
khanates?
A. crop production

147
 B. agriculture
C. market economy
D. growing cotton
E. Cattle breeding
16. Who was zhyrau?
A. improvisers, songwriters
B. military leaders
C. political figures
D. rural teachers
E. coaches
17. Where is located Tanbaly Museum-Reserve?
A. near Taras
B. near Almaty
C. near Astana
D. in Atyrau
E. at Nur-Sultan
18. Who kind of distribution to culture made Ybyrai Altynsarin?
A. He became famous in the war with the Dzungars
B. He opened the first restaurant
C. He open the first special school for Kazakh children
D. He wrote the first novel in Kazakhstan
E. He translated Pushkin into Kazakh
19. What was the main philosophical work Of Abai Kunanbayev?
A. The Book of Healing
B. Blessed knowledge
C. Kutadgu Bilig
D. The Book of Words
E. Divani Hikmet
20. Who was Kurmangazy?
A. He became famous in the war with the Dzungars
B. great artist who played on stage
C. famous Kazakh sportsman
D. famous Kazakh artist
E. a great musician, dombra player, composer

148
 ANSWERS

Chapter 1 Answer Chapter 2 Answer Chapter 3 Answer

1 C 1 A 1 A
2 A 2 C 2 B
3 A 3 B 3 C
4 D 4 C 4 D
5 A 5 A 5 E
6 A 6 E 6 A
7 D 7 A 7 B
8 A 8 B 8 C
9 C 9 D 9 D
10 B 10 A 10 E
11 E 11 C 11 A
12 B 12 E 12 B
13 D 13 A 13 C
14 C 14 B 14 D
15 D 15 C 15 E
16 A 16 D 16 A
17 B 17 C 17 B
18 D 18 A 18 C
19 B 19 B 19 D
20 C 20 E 20 E

149
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1. Aegean art. - https://arthistoryteachingresources.org/lessons/aegean-art/

2. Ancient India. - https://www.ancient.eu/india/
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4. Confucianism. (written by Tu Weiming)
-https://www.britannica.com/topic/Confucianism
5. Classicism arts. - https://www.britannica.com/art/Classicism
6. Classicism in Art. Definition, History, Examples. -.http://www.visual-arts-
cork.com/definitions/classicism-in-art.htm
7. Egyptian Pyramids - https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/the-
egyptian-pyramids
8. Eco Umberto . Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages.– Yale University
Press,2002. - 144 p.-https://www.amazon.com/Art-Beauty-Middle-Ages-
Umberto
9. Europe & the Islamic Mediterranean AD 700–1600.
-http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/e/europe-islamic-mediterranean/
10. Gothic Art. Written by the editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. -
https://www.britannica.com/art/Gothic-art
11. Greek sculpture Praxiteles and Lysippus. -
http://www.classicalresourcecentre.com/articles/prax.ht
12. Huntington Samuel. The Clash of Civilizations And the remaking of World
Order.- https://www.stetson.edu/artsci/political-science/media/clash.pdf
13. Mesopotamia. Fundraiser: Mesopotamia Teaching Materials. -
https://www.ancient.eu/Mesopotamia/
14. Mesopotamia: Birthplace of civilisation -
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2010/nov/10/ancient-world-mesopotamia
15. Mohism. - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mohism/
16. Ortega y Gassett Jose. The revolt of the masses-
http://pinkmonkey.com/dl/library1/revolt.pdf
17. Spengler Oswald.  Decline of the West.- CreateSpace Independent
Publishing Platform, 2014. - 384 p. - https://www.amazon.com/
19. Smith Daniel.How to Think Like da Vinci. -  MJF Books, 2015. - 295 p. -
https://www.amazon.com/
20. The wold of Ancient Greece. Culture. -
http://www.theancientworld.net/civ/greeks_culture.html
21. The Lives and Social Culture of Ancient Greece.
-https://online.maryville.edu/social-science-degrees/social-culture-ancient-
greece/
22. The Islamic world in the Middle Ages.
-https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zx9xsbk/revision/8

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